After studying music at York University and singing at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (as a BP Scholar on the Opera Course), Joseph Cornwell began his career with The Consort of Musicke and the Taverner Consort. Singing under conductors such as William Christie, Harry Christophers, Eric Ericson, Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Gabriel Garrido, Hervé Niquet and Andrew Parrott, his international engagements have taken him throughout Europe and to North America and the Far East as well as throughout the UK.
Operatic roles have included Snout A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Teatro di San Carlo, Naples, Mitridate Il Pompeo Magno at the Varazdin Festival, Croatia, Polimone Il Tito for the Opéra National du Rhin, Il conte Le nozze di Dorina at the Musikfestpiele Potsdam Sanssouci, Achille Iphigénie en Aulide for Opera Factory,Lurcanio Ariodante for St Gallen Opera, Pilade Oreste for the English Bach Festival, Monteverdi Orfeo for the Boston Early Music Festival, Capella Cracoviensis and for Oslo Summer Opera, Giove Il ritorno d’Ulisse and King Arthur in Lisbon, Eumete Il ritorno d’Ulisse at the Aix-en-Provence Festival (a production now available on Virgin DVD), Thespis / Mercure Platée for TCC Productions, Lisbon, and Tamese Arsilda, Regina di Ponto at the Barga Festival.
His recordings include St Matthew Passion with the Drottningholm Baroque Ensemble, Boyce Peleus & Thetis with Opera Restor’d, Campra Requiem and King Arthur with Le Concert Spirituel, Israel in Babylon with the Kantorei Saarlouis, Messiah and MonteverdiVespers 1610 with the Taverner Consort, Acis & Galatea (GRAMOPHONE Baroque Vocal CD of 2000), Monteverdi Vespers 1610 and Mozart Mass in C Minor with Les Arts Florissants, MonteverdiVespers 1610 with the Gabrieli Consort, Rossini Petite Messe Solennelle with Jos van Immerseel (BBC Radio 3 Building a Library Choice), Shepherd Oedipus Rex with The Philharmonia Orchestra, Tamese Arsilda, Regina di Ponto with Modo Antiquo and Fairest Isle with the Parley of Instruments.
Recent engagements have included UgoneFlavio for English Touring Opera,Orfeo L’anima del filosofo for the Atelier Lyrique de Tourcoing with Jean-Claude Malgoire, EumeteIl ritorno d’Ulisse at the Teatro Real, Madrid, with William Christie (a performance now available on Dynamic DVD), Giove Il ritorno d’Ulisse at the Flanders Opera, the B Minor Mass with Capella Cracoviensis, J. S. Bach Cantatas at the International Bach Festival, Swidnica, and Messiah with the Choeur de Chambre de Namur and Les Agrémens in Brussels and Namur.
Current engagements include PirroDidone with Les Arts Florissants in Caen, Luxembourg and Paris, The Fairy Queenon tour with the New London Consort and Philip Pickett and Mozart Masses with the Polski Chór Kameralny.
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