Joseph Payne was born in 1941 on the Chinese-Mongolian border, the son of British missionary parents. He received his earliest musical training as a cathedral chorister in England, and in Switzerland where he lived for several years before emigrating to the United States. He studied at Trinity College and Hartt College of Music and was a pupil of Noretta Conci, Fernando Valenti, Clarence Watters, and Wanda Landowska. Based in Boston, where he has lived since 1965, he has taught at several major American universities and now appears throughout the world, performing over sixty concerts a year on the harpsichord and organ. His many recordings include the world première recording of the thirty-three Neumeister chorale-preludes attributed to JS Bach and rediscovered at Yale University in 1984. He has received grants and awards from the Lowell Institute at Harvard University and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has produced The Bach Connection, and other syndicated series for radio which have been heard coast-to-coast throughout North America.