Theorbo Player James

James is a ver­sa­tile musi­cian, pro­fi­cient in both solo and ensem­ble per­for­mances, show­cas­ing his exper­tise in play­ing the lute, the­o­r­bo, and gui­tar. His musi­cal pur­suits have tak­en him on cap­ti­vat­ing jour­neys through­out the Unit­ed King­dom and abroad. Col­lab­o­rat­ing with esteemed artists and ensem­bles, such as the Acad­e­my of Ancient Music, Rachel Podger, Voces8, Dame Emma Kirk­by and Dow­land Works, the Nether­lands Bach Soci­ety, Eng­lish Tour­ing Opera, The Mar­i­an Con­sort, and Spir­i­ta­to, has been a source of immense joy for him.

He has had the priv­i­lege of pre­sent­ing his tal­ents at renowned events and fes­ti­vals like The Lon­don Fes­ti­val of Baroque Music, The Lute Soci­ety, the Lon­don Han­del Fes­ti­val, Bre­con Baroque Fes­ti­val, Brighton Ear­ly Music Fes­ti­val, and Dart­ing­ton Inter­na­tion­al Fes­ti­val. James’s per­for­mances have also gar­nered recog­ni­tion through appear­ances on var­i­ous radio and tele­vi­sion platforms.

Note­wor­thy recent endeav­ors include an upcom­ing album on Signum Records, where he col­lab­o­rates with the Acad­e­my of Ancient Music and con­duc­tor Lau­rence Cum­mings to per­form 17^th-cen­tu­ry Ital­ian duets. This high­ly antic­i­pat­ed release will also fea­ture the remark­able con­tri­bu­tions of con­tentor Ran­dall Scot­ting and tenor Jorge Navar­ro Col­orado. Fur­ther­more, James had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to record the film score for The Lost King along­side the Lon­don Sym­pho­ny Orches­tra and com­pos­er Alexan­dre Desplat.

Dri­ven by a shared pas­sion for the rich reper­toire of voice and lute, James and sopra­no Emi­ly Owen formed the duo Melis­ma­ta. Present­ly, they are dili­gent­ly work­ing on their debut album, which explores themes of nature and spir­i­tu­al­i­ty through musi­cal inter­pre­ta­tions of 17^th-cen­tu­ry poet­ry. In addi­tion to main­tain­ing a busy per­for­mance sched­ule, they active­ly col­lab­o­rate with Live Music Now to bring the joy of music to indi­vid­u­als who may not have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty oth­er­wise. Their out­reach efforts encom­pass a diverse range of per­for­mances, work­shops, res­i­den­cies, and train­ing pro­grams con­duct­ed in care homes, hos­pi­tals, health­care set­tings, and spe­cial schools. James and Emi­ly par­tic­u­lar­ly strive to engage chil­dren with spe­cial edu­ca­tion­al needs and dis­abil­i­ties, as well as old­er indi­vid­u­als in social care.