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Joseph Brent has brought a consummate artistry and dedication to the mandolin, and has been instrumental in bringing his instrument into the 21st century.

Graduating from the Berklee College of Music in 1999 with a focus on contemporary music, he immediately began working closely with many of the great modern composers, having premiered or performed works by Elliot Carter, Pierre Boulez, Magnus Lindberg, Olga Neuwirth, and Nathan Davis, among many others, and has lectured on contemporary music at New York's Museum of Modern Art. He has performed with many well-known chamber ensembles in New York, including The International Contemporary Ensemble, Argento Ensemble, Speculum Musicae, Fireworks Music, Tres Americas, and Henry Street Chamber Opera. Concurrently, he is thoroughly versed in the traditional orchestral repertoire, performing regularly with The Boston Symphony, The American Symphony Orchestra, New York City Ballet and City Opera, New Jersey Symphony, Juilliard Opera and Ballet Orchestras, and the Chelsea Symphony. As a solo artist, he has given recitals and clinics across the United States, Europe, and Asia, and made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in 2001 with the New England Philharmonic Ensemble in a program of new music. In 2007, he was featured soloist with the Orchestra a Pizzico Ligure in several performances throughout northern Italy, and performed in the Miller Theatre portrait of Elliot Carter, conducted by Jeffrey Milarsky, in celebration of the composer's 99th birthday. With Iranian-born author and performance artist Amir Parsa, he presents multi-media staged readings and demonstrations, including at the recent Engendered Festival at the Halvai Gallery. In 2008, he was a featured performer and clinician at the Classical Mandolin Society of America annual convention in Montreal, and performed an all-Carter program at the Tanglewood Music Festival under the direction of James Levine. In 2009 he headlined the Hildener Meisterkurs für Mandoline und Guitarre in Düsseldorf, Germany. That same year he and with his duo partner, harp virtuoso Bridget Kibbey, were named amongst the first artists to participate in the Weill Music Institute's Carnegie Hall Musical Connections program. This year will also see performances in Lima, Peru with the Tres Americas Project, and solo recitals throughout the northeast, and he will return to Italy next summer as instructor in the Accademia Internazionale di Mandolino.

He has commissioned works from many great composers, including Hiroya Miura, Pablo Santiago Chin, Mauricio Pauly, Andrew Gerle, Federico Tarazona, David Gilliland, and Victor Kioulaphides. In 2007, his two books of mandolin pedagogy, Scales and Arpeggios for the Mandolin and Orchestral and Chamber Excerpts for Mandolin were published by Lulu to great acclaim.

Simultaneously, he has maintained an active career in popular and improvising music. He has performed with Woody Allen, Stephane Grappelli, Alice and Ravi Coltrane, Tommy Tune, Sam Moore (from Sam and Dave), Kevn Kinney, and maintained a monthly set at the legendary jazz club Birdland with Nancy Anderson. He has also been seen in the pits of Broadway and Off-Broadway shows Spring Awakening, Pirate Queen, Hairspray, Urban Cowboy, Big River (National Tour), and dozens of others. He also plays with several rock and roots music artists in and around New York.

Joseph Brent is the first and only mandolin instructor to hold a faculty position with an American conservatory. He plays a Grand Concert mandolin, designed especially for him by Brian Dean of Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, and a Model 4 Neapolitan mandolin made for him by Gabriele Pandini of Ferrara, Italy.