Joe currently works as the leader of CoLab and the Engaging Audiences programme at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance in London.
Joe is a violinist. His work as a composer and performer is around the core themes of folk music and culture through improvised and devised performance in music, theatre and opera.
The central themes in his teaching and academic work are collaborative learning; the cultural industries and early career survival for the emerging artist.
He firmly believes in music as a tool for social change and empowerment.
As a teenager he left school at sixteen to study art and design and performed on the electric bass in both punk and folk bands. At eighteen he moved to Paris and after a four years immersed in jazz, theatre, travel and street culture he returned to the UK to study jazz violin at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama..
Through the 1980s he was inspired in the possibility of music as a tool for social change and empowerment. He worked with Community Music delivering music workshops and training with John Stevens and played with his own trio and other free improvisation groups such as People's Liberation Music and the Lapis String Quartet.
Since then, as a composer he has created works for Opera North (The Gypsy Bible, Foiea Verde, St George), The National Theatre (Oresteia, Macbeth, Midsummer Night’s Dream and Romeo and Juliet) and has collaborated with a range of different artists: Gavin Bryars, Laurie Anderson, Roma musicians and the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
His work in Education has ranged from work with LPO, Welsh National Opera and Opera North in addition to running workshops in collaborative performance in Japan and the UK.