Bass and lutenist Joel Frederiksen lives in Munich, Germany. As a bass and with his Ensemble Phoenix Munich he tours internationally and has recorded prolifically. Some of the leading figures in early music with whom he has performed include Dame Emma Kirkby, Andrew Parrott, Rubén Dubrovsky and Jordi Savall, and he has sung with leading ensembles such as Vox Luminis, Cinquecento, the Netherlands Bach Society, the Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Bach Consort Vienna, the Boston Camerata, Ensemble Gilles Binchois and the Huelgas Ensemble. Frederiksen studied voice and lute in New York and Michigan, where he earned his master's degree. Directly after completion of his studies he became a member of two renowned ensembles for early music in the US, the Waverly Consort and the Boston Camerata. His versatile basso profundo voice and expressive performances have earned him worldwide acclaim.
Joel Frederiksen has dedicated many years to the self-accompanied lute song. He founded Ensemble Phoenix Munich (EPM) in Germany in 2003 for the CD recording of Orpheus, I am on which he accompanies himself with Renaissance lutes and archlute. In 2007, the early music series "Between Mars and Venus" was established with concerts at the Bavarian National Museum in Munich. In four concerts per season, they have presented treasures of early music from England, Italy, France, Spain, Germany and the New World. Fascination with the earliest music of Frederiksen's homeland, the United States, led to the release of the highly acclaimed harmonia mundi France CD, Rose of Sharon - One Hundred Years of American Music, in 2011.
EPM's debut CD for harmonia mundi France, The Elfin Knight - Ballads and Dances, was released in August 2007 and reissued on the Gold label in 2018. For his second harmonia mundi release, O felice morire, he received the German Record Critics' Award (2008 Bestenliste). The French critics awarded him the Orphée d'Or - Martti Talvela Prize (Academie du Disque Lyrique - Motets by Mikołaj Zieleński with Dame Emma Kirkby) in 2011. The EPM recording Requiem for a Pink Moon - An Elizabethan Tribute to Nick Drake, received the German Echo Prize in 2013. Among other honors, he was named "Classical Musician of the Year" in 2007 by the Munich Evening Press (Münchner Abendzeitung) and from his alma mater in Michigan he received, among other prizes, the Distinguished Alumni Award in 2012.
Frederiksen performs as a guest artist throughout Europe and North America and is under exclusive contract with SONY Records. The CD Tell me true love (music by John Dowland) released by SONY/Deutsche Harmonia Mundi in 2016 was followed in 2018 by a Christmas CD of Spanish and Latin American music, Un niño nos es naçido (A child for us is born).
EPM was invited by the Goethe Institute to present concerts in Vietnam in November 2019. In December 2019, Frederiksen sang Monteverdi's Marienvesper with the Netherlands Bach Society, under the direction of Andrew Parrott. Before the lockdown in 2020 he gave performances of Orpheus, I am in Germany, Switzerland, France and Malta and toured the US with the Boston Camerata in The Play of Daniel (King Darius).
In October 2022 Ensemble Phoenix Munich presented the monumental work La Pellegrina - the Florentine Intermedii from 1589. The performances in Munich, Augsburg and Stuttgart included many eminent artists of the early music scene.
2023 was an exciting year for EPM with the release of two CDs. A Day with Suzanne - A Tribute to Leonard Cohen with French Renaissance chanson (SONY/DHM, January 2023) was a Spiegel bestseller (Top 10) and was nominated twice for the German Opus Classic Award. Tours included Germany, Switzerland, the Czech Republic and Canada. Walther von der Vogelweide - Courtly Songs of the Middle Ages, was recorded by the Bavarian Radio (SONY/DHM, May 2023) and released by SONY/DHM to critical acclaim. This project includes a 30-minute documentary film following in the footsteps of the Minnesinger, Walther von der Vogelweide.
As a guest artist, 2023 offered an exciting mix of collaborations for Joel Frederiksen. Performances with the Belgian Pluto Ensemble took him to Brussels and Regensburg, and he performed with Vox Luminis in Paris, Amsterdam and Brussels. In 2024 he toured with Vox Luminis around Europe culminating with an appearance at the Salzburg Summer Festival. He is featured in October with Berlin's Lautten Compagney in Claudio Monteverdi's "Orfeo" as the boatman, Caronte, with performances in Germany and Switzerland.
New programs include "Die drei Bässe" (The Three Basses), presented in Munich and Blaibach in February 2024 and recorded by the Bavarian Radio. The production was presented in Antwerp (AMUZ) and will be performed on Malta (Valetta Baroque Festival) in 2028. Performances this year of "A Day with Suzanne" have taken Frederiksen und EPM to important festivals around Germany including the Wittenberger Renaissance Festival and the Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele. This year marks the 17th season of his concert series "Between Mars and Venus" in the Bavarian National Museum, Munich.