Joseph Fleetwood was born in 1980 in Dundee and is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow, and the Royal College of Music in London. He gave his debut recital in Scotland in 1992 with a programme that included Beethoven’s F minor Sonata Op.2 No.1. In his teenage years his performances attracted acclaim from many musicians, and when Joseph was 15, Murray McLachlan hailed him as ‘An outstanding young performer’.

In 1998 Joseph entered the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, and here he won the RSAMD Lieder Prize with Australian Soprano Miranda Keys when he was 19 years old. This led to Joseph becoming sought after as an accompanist in the Academy. As well as exploring the song repertoire, whilst he was an RSAMD student Joseph made his concerto debut in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen playing 3 different concertos: Gershwin’s Rhapsody In Blue, Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto and Grieg’s Piano Concerto in A minor.

In 2003 he entered the Royal College of Music where he studied solo piano and chamber music – gaining First Class Honours in the latter, with his piano trio, playing works by Shostakovich and Beethoven. He also made his London concerto debut at the RCM, again playing Rhapsody In Blue.

Joseph has built up a reputation as a musician comfortable in many different areas of the repertoire and he regularly performs works by the Classical and Romantic composers. More recently, Joseph gave a series of recitals at the Bluthner Piano Centre in London, performing the complete Partitas by J.S.Bach, and he is currently expanding his repertoire with works by contemporary composers including Judith Weir and John McCabe.

A pianist with a formidable technique, Joseph has a number of the great piano concerti in his repertoire, including Rachmaninoff’s Second Concerto and Paganini Variations, Tchaikovsky’s First and Second Concerti, Shostakovich’s Second Concerto, Beethoven’s Fifth Concerto and Mendelssohn’s First Concerto.

Joseph has worked with a number of world-class musicians including Artur Pizarro, Malcolm Martineau, Dmitri Alexeev, Martino Tirimo, Gianandrea Noseda, Josef Swensen and Karen Cargill.

Since 2006 Joseph has studied with George Donald, who is a performer of considerable reputation in his own right. For almost 30 years, George was the musical director of the legendary comedy trio ‘Scotland The What?’. However, it is less well-known that George Donald is a remarkable concert pianist, and is one of the most sought-after chamber music partners in the UK.

George Donald was a pupil of the great pedagogues Aube Tzerko and Karl Ulrich Schnabel. Tzerko was a pupil of Artur Schnabel, and Karl Ulrich was the son of Artur Schnabel. This fact means that Joseph is part of an extraordinary musical lineage: Artur Schnabel was a pupil of Theodor Leschetizsky, Leschetizsky a pupil of Karl Czerny and Karl Czerny a pupil of Beethoven himself!

As well as performing throughout the UK, Joseph is building up an international reputation, and in the 2009-2010 season will give performances in Vienna, Wurzburg, Aschaffenburg and Reykjavic.

In 2008, Joseph produced his debut CD of piano music by Edvard Grieg, which is available through his website and at all of his concerts.