Joseph Hancock is a British Tenor studying at the Royal Academy of Music.
Joseph is a recent graduate of St John’s College, Cambridge, and is currently a postgraduate student at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studies with Mark Wildman and Janet Haney. He is the recent winner of the Flora Nielsen Prize for French song, at the Royal Academy of Music Vocal Faculty Recital Day, at which he was also highly commended in the Michael Head Prize. He began singing as a chorister in the Choir of New College, Oxford, under the direction of Edward Higginbottom. He then went on to study Music at the University of Cambridge (St John’s College), where he won the Winifred Georgina Holgate Pollard Memorial Prize, the Whytehead Scholarship, Wright Prize, and Hughes Year Prize for outstanding achievement. There he also sang as a Choral Scholar and later Lay Clerk in the Choir of St John's College, directed by Andrew Nethsingha and Christopher Gray. In 2022 he was a member of the Sir Arthur Bliss Lieder Scheme at Pembroke College, receiving tuition from Joseph Middleton, and in recent years has enjoyed masterclasses and tuition with Sir Thomas Allen, Ailish Tynan, Nick Mulroy, and Lucy Crowe.
Recent solo concert highlights include the Evangelist for Bach’s St John Passion, Schumann’s Dichterliebe, Handel’s Messiah, San Giovanni in Handel’s ‘La Resurrezione’. Recent operatic roles include The Male Chorus (The Rape of Lucretia, B. Britten), Nettuno & Pastore (La Liberazione di Ruggiero, F. Caccini), Prince Charming (Cendrillon, P. Viardot), and a workshop performance of a scene from a new opera written by Oliver Rudland.
Joseph is also an experienced ensemble singer, and has performed with ensembles including Voces8 and the Voces8 Foundation Choir, Armonico Consort, Wishful Singing, and Continuum Choir. He was a member of the inaugural cohort of Choral Scholars with the Oxford Bach Soloists, directed by Tom Hammond-Davies, and sang as a Scholar with vocal ensemble Voces8 from 2022-2023. He continues to work with the Voces8 Foundation as a member of their Education Team, delivering singing workshops in schools across the country. Since November 2024, Joseph also works as a Volunteer with the London branch of The Choir with No Name, an organisation of Choirs involving people affected by homelessness.
Joseph is grateful for the support of Help Musicians and the St John’s College Choir Association.