JOSEPH HANCOCK

With a growing reputation for his interpretation of Baroque repertoire, Oratorio and Song, Joseph is a prize-winning postgraduate student at the Royal Academy of Music. He began singing as a chorister in the Choir of New College, Oxford, under the direction of Edward Higginbottom. Prior to university he was a member of the inaugural cohort of Choral Scholars with the Oxford Bach Soloists, directed by Tom Hammond-Davies. 

 

He went on to study Music at the University of Cambridge, where he graduated top of his year in the Faculty of Music. Whilst at Cambridge, he sang as a Choral Scholar and later Lay Clerk in the Choir of St John's College, directed by Andrew Nethsingha and Christopher Gray. 

 

At the Royal Academy of Music he studied with Mark Wildman and Janet Haney, and won the Nancy Nuttall Early Music prize with the Duke’s Consort, the Flora Nielsen Prize, and was Highly Commended in the Michael Head Prize.

 

Recent solo concert highlights include performances of the Evangelist role in Bach's 'St John Passion' and ‘Christmas Oratorio’, Mozart’s ‘Requiem’, Handel’s ‘Messiah’, Haydn's ‘The Creation’ and the title role in Britten’s ‘St Nicholas’. Operatic roles include Remendado (Carmen, Bizet) with Royal Academy Opera, Male Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia, Britten), Nettuno and Pastore (La liberazione di Ruggiero, Caccini), Prince Charming (Cendrillon, Viardot), and Opera Scenes at the Royal Academy of Music as Count Almaviva (Il barbiere di Siviglia, Rossini), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni, Mozart) and Lysander (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Britten) as well as premiere performances of two short operas for the Opera Makers programme at the Royal Academy of Music, and the Tête à Tête Festival.

 

An accomplished Song and Lieder singer, Joseph was a member of the Sir Arthur Bliss Lieder Scheme at Pembroke College, Cambridge, has given recitals of English, French and German song in London and Cambridge. 

 

Joseph has extensive experience of choral and consort work, having performed with ensembles including Voces8 & The Voces8 Scholars Ensemble, Apollo5, Polyphony, Sinfonia of London Chorus, ORA Singers, Armonico Consort, and Continuum, and is a member of the professional quartet at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Square, London.