Joseph Franklin is a bassist and composer from working-class regional Victoria, currently based in Narrm/Melbourne. His work draws on post-human and ecologically informed understandings of historical and contemporary creative practice, and spans improvised, notated, experimental and sound art. Along with leading his own projects, Franklin is a member of new music ensemble The Music Box Project and founder of experimental performance group The Opera Company.

In 2022 Franklin was selected for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Cybec composition commission, a finalist for the APRA Professional Development Awards, and is a masters candidate in composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne. In 2021 he was a finalist for the Freedman Jazz Fellowship, and received the Melbourne Guitar Perspectives composition award and commission. In 2020 Franklin was awarded a Marten Bequest Scholarship, for which he is developing several projects including a piano concerto, a theatre work, the design and build of a new bass instrument, several collaborations and a solo bass album.

In 2019 Franklin received funding from the Australia Council for the Arts to study with Professor Mark Applebaum at Stanford University. The resulting work Jouska was performed by The Music Box Project at the BIFEM in 2019—which received the award for excellence in experimental music at the 2020 Art Music Awards. In May 2021, the work was performed at two sold-out concerts at Australia Hall in Sydney. “Jouska was the standout work for its integration of music and theatrical aspects and the variation of compositional techniques” (Classik On).

Also in 2019, Franklin recorded Amen in New York City with Marc Hannaford and Satoshi Takeishi, which was toured in the USA and Australia. Amen was described as “the avant-garde of today” (The Weekend Australian) and the Melbourne album launch was a finalist for performance of the year at the 2020 Art Music Awards.