Biography
A native of New Zealand, James has performed at the Kauffman Center, Carnegie Hall, Alice Tully Hall, Riverside Church, and the renowned Joe’s Pub in New York City. He has appeared with such organizations as The Ravinia Festival, Joy in Singing, Southern Opera, Toledo Opera, The Southern Sinfonia, The Little Orchestra Society of New York, The Orpheus Choir, The Merola Opera Program, The Schwabacher Recital Series, The Banff Centre, The Opera Company of Middlebury, Red Light New Music, Stage Time Collaborative and The Japan Society of New York.
He completed his graduate studies at the Manhattan School of Music in May of 2008. While there, he was the Orvis Foundation Scholar and was awarded the Janet D. Schenck Award for his distinguished contribution to the life of the school.
James’ roles include: Tamino in Mozart’s Die Zauberflote; Pluto in Offenbach’s Orpheus and the Underworld; Sam in Kurt Weill’s Street Scene, Britten’s Albert Herring, Monteverdi’s L’Orfeo; Kristian in Estacio’s Lillian Alling; Nadir in Bizet’s Les Pecheurs des Perles; The Baker in Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods; Billy in Weill’s Mahagonny Songspeil.
Concert and Oratorio works include: Britten’s Winter Words; Schumman’s Dichterliebe; Liszt’s Tre Sonetti di Petrarca; Weill’s Four Songs of Walt Whitman; Berlioz’s L'Enfance du Christ; Handel’s Messiah and Judas Maccabeus; Haydn’s Creation and Theresa Mass; Beethoven’s 9th Symphony; Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and St John’s Passion; Vaughn Williams’ Hodie; Mozart’s Requiem; Saint-Seans’ Christmas Oratorio.
James’ awards and honors include: A 2010 Arts Excellence Award from the Malvina Major Foundation, Winner of the Joy in Singing Competition (2008), Winner of the Lotte Lenya Competition (2007), Wellington Rotary Scholarship, Marie D’Albini Scholarship, Bell Gully Travel Award, Sir Henry Cooper Memorial Scholarship in Music, grants from the Lankhuyzen/Whetu Kairangi Masonic Trust and the Malvina Major Foundation.
In 2011 James has performed with Toledo Opera, Opera on the Avalon and The Banff Center’s Opera as Theatre program. He created the role of Marco Polo in the world premier of Christopher Cerrone’s Invisible Cities, an opera based on Italo Calvino’s novel. A passionate performer of art song, this season James performed Schumann’s Dichterliebe with pianist Jillian Zack, and Liszt’s Tre Sonetti di Petrarca with pianist Liza Stepanova. James also appeared with the Mac-Haydn Theater as the title character(s) in Jekyll an Hyde the Musical.
James is currently working on his debut recording with renowned pianist Kenneth Merrill. The disc, “Exiled” The extrication of Kurt Weill, will be released in 2012.
James resides in New York City.