Spotlight on… Joe Hearson

Joe is the founder, Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of the CSSO. He is extremely passionate about Stoke-on-Trent, and is deeply motivated to ensure that the city has a vibrant musical future.

Joe is a conductor, musical director, composer and educator. Born to musical parents in Kidsgrove, his earliest years were spent in performance venues in Staffordshire, where his dad would be conducting musicals and his mum playing with brass bands. Even home life as a child was filled with a cacophony of musical sounds as his parents taught their students. It was inevitable, then, that their musicality would rub off and, by the age of 6, Joe had begun taking piano lessons with his dad.

It was through his parents’ production company that Joe had his first conducting experience, conducting the overture to The Pirates of Penzance and, soon afterwards, the musical Calamity Jane. When his dad passed away following an 18-year-long battle with cancer during the rehearsal period for My Fair Lady in concert at the Victoria Hall, Hanley, it was appropriate that Joe ‘took over the baton’ and conducted the concert. He has never looked back.

Joe trained at the University of Manchester, where he studied conducting with Robert Guy and Mark Heron, gaining a MusB in 2019. During his time at the university, Joe gained a place on the prestigious student conductor programme, giving him regular opportunities to conduct the university symphony, chamber, wind and string orchestras. It was in his final year in Manchester that Joe founded the CSSO – then called the Symphonia Verbum Orchestra.

With the CSSO, Joe now delivers regular public concerts and presents community education and engagement programmes such as school workshops and relaxed concerts. His direction of the orchestra has so far resulted in the performance of three world premieres, commissioned by the CSSO, as well as the performance of many under-performed pieces – particularly by British composers whose work Joe is particularly passionate about championing.

Joe is one of the Hallé’s choral conductors, working with several workplace choirs. He also works as a guest conductor of community orchestras such as North Staffs Symphony Orchestra – one of the oldest amateur orchestras in the country. As a composer, Joe’s work has been heard on many of the UK’s top networks, including the BBC, ITV, Channels 4 & 5, and Netflix.