Joe St.Johanser

was born in 1941 in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire and educated at Brighton Hove and Sussex Grammar School and University College London. His surname is of Austrian origin; his paternal grandfather was an immigrant to England from Bavaria via Sweden in the late nineteenth century; his maternal ancestors were Knights and Nobles by surname and generally agricultural labourers by trade, exceptions being one who was the pub landlord in Hambledon, Hampshire when and where they laid down the laws of cricket and another the coxswain of the Littlehampton lifeboat in Sussex.

His first career was in systems analysis, computer software engineering and management consultancy (BSc Economics and Statistics 1963, MSc Computer Science 1972, Fellow of the British Computer Society). He worked for IBM and Gillette among others and was from 1975 to 1985 Chairman of the Helix Technology Group of banking software specialists.

He began a second career as singer/actor and composer in 1985, studying singing with Wynford Evans, John Huw Davies, Glyn Davenport, Pamela Barker and others, and composing with Dr. Steve Goss and Professor Sebastian Forbes at Surrey University (BMus - Composition and Musicology 2001); and is an alumnus of the Canford Composers Workshop, taught by Malcolm Singer (composer and Music Director of the Menuhin School).

He is a member of the Incorporated Society of Musicians (past Chairman of the Guildford Centre), the National Association of Teachers of Singing and the British Voice Association. As well as composing he translates opera libretti, directs opera for Starlight Opera, works as a singing teacher in Woking, Surrey. Singing Lessons in Woking .

We welcome enquiries for permission to perform his music. Scores are available for perusal.

Sponsorship is available for performances by small opera companies.

Most of his stage works - musicals, opera buffa and grand opera - are eminently suitable for chorus based companies. The music is sophisticated but not excessively difficult. Audiences are very appreciative of the drama and the approachable music.

He has performed over 40 principal roles as an amateur and semi-pro singer and actor alongside his day jobs. This extensive body of practical stage experience informs his composition of stage works, making them well structured, dramatic, fun to perform and entertaining to watch.

"My Fair Lady - Professor Higgins discusses phonetics with his student Eliza"

"Hello Broadway - The Gene Kelly stand-in sitting down"