Joseph Crouch has been principal cellist of The English Concert since 2008, but his relationship with the orchestra began over thirty years ago: as a boy treble in the choir of Westminster Abbey Joe joined in collaborative concerts and recordings with the orchestra that also featured its current director, Harry Bicket, on keyboard. Along with the immersive vocal and choral education offered at the choir school came an early exposure to—and preference for—Renaissance and Baroque music. Joe was a choral scholar and read music at King’s College Cambridge, where further collaborations brought him into contact with period instrument specialists of The Brandenburg Consort.

It was not only the repertoire that attracted Joe to the Baroque cello, but the role of the basso continuo in the orchestral texture; the responsibility for providing the music’s harmonic foundations and rhythmic propulsion seemed to offer an activity in which one could happily spend an entire career. Joe made the final shift from voice to cello as a postgraduate at the Royal Academy of Music, studying with Jennifer Ward Clarke, and on graduation was invited to join the European Union Baroque orchestra as its principal cellist.

Since then Joe has enjoyed a career that has seen him playing and teaching the basso continuo role in a huge variety of settings: he was first appointed principal cellist with The Gabrieli Consort & Players, and then joined Monica Huggett in Trio Sonnerie; later he became principal with The Academy of Ancient Music, The Sixteen, and today Joe combines principal positions with The English Concert and the Internationale Bach Akademie, Stuttgart, with teaching positions at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and at the Royal Academy of Music in London.

This recording is one of Joe’s increasingly frequent forays away from the bass line and into the soloist’s spotlight, but his chief love remains the basso continuo and collaborations with solo and choral voices.