COMPOSER
ORCHESTRATOR
ARRANGER
MUSICAL DIRECTOR
PIANIST
EDUCATOR

“Straddling a line between contemporary opera with hints of jazz, Atkins’ music enhances her (Walker’s) words with sensitivity, moving seamlessly between prose and rhyme, occasionally soaring with a burst of emotion…Original, thought-provoking, and genuinely moving”

***** Musical Theatre Review on Scene Unseen

NEWS

August 2025.

This month, following the success of Joseph’s latest collaboration with writer and singer Jessica Walker, La Solitude, a solo show exploring the life and songs of French singer-songwriter Barbara, the pair will be recording a new album of Barbara’s songs for Resonus Classics. They will be joined by the Solem Quartet and saxophonist Megan Glover.

This month, he is also Composer and Musical Director for the upcoming RSC Next Generation production of Timon of Athens, playing at the RSC’s Other Place in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Looking ahead, he is reuniting with Lea Desandre, Thomas Dunford and Ensemble Jupiter at L’Opera Comique in Paris this December, for performances of their Julie Andrews concert, Chasing Rainbows. See Joe’s diary for more information.

He is also working on new settings of homoromantic verse by Early Modern poet, Richard Barnfield, in collaboration with Dr Will Tosh, author of Straight Acting: The Many Queer Lives of William Shakespeare and a new musical with playwright Chris Adams, an adaption of Adam de Hegedus’ novel The Heart in Exile, the first ever published queer detective story.

Read more about Joseph’s recent work here.

COMPOSER

With a passion for words and storytelling, Joseph is a composer of innovative hybrid works, predominantly for theatre and cabaret. His music is characterised by an innate theatricality, spanning a diverse range of influences and genres. He is a composer of musicals and theatre works, cabaret songs and concert music, and has written for the Young Vic, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company and British Youth Music Theatre.

ORCHESTRATOR & ARRANGER

Joseph is an experienced arranger and orchestrator, with a diverse portfolio of work across a broad range of ensembles, both instrumental and vocal. His orchestrations and arrangements have been heard in the West End, Cadogan Hall, Wilton’s Music Hall, L’Opera Comique, Paris, the Public Theater, New York, La Cité Bleue, Geneva, and on BBC Radio 3.

MUSICAL DIRECTOR & PIANIST

A highly sought-after musical director and accompanist (on both piano and accordion), Joseph performs widely across the UK in concert and cabaret as well as, in recent years, in New York, Paris, Geneva, Rouen and Rotterdam. His work with, among others, singer and writer Jessica Walker, Fascinating Aida’s Liza Pulman and actor and writer Cush Jumbo have received plaudits on both sides of the Atlantic.

EDUCATOR

Since 2009, Joseph has been a faculty member of the Higher Education Department at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, working as a music practitioner with actors-in-training from all over the world. He has worked at several leading UK drama schools as musical director and composer. He has also written music for the ABRSM exam syllabuses.