BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Christopher James (b. 1951, Huntington, NY) studied composition with Isaac Nemiroff and David Lewin at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and pursued graduate study under David Diamond and Milton Babbitt at The Juilliard School, earning the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in 1987.
His catalog includes three symphonies, four string quartets, and more than 50 songs. His First String Quartet, awarded the Juilliard Prize for New Quartet Music in 1986, was performed by the Juilliard String Quartet at the Library of Congress in 1987, and broadcast by National Public Radio. In 1989 his orchestral composition Lohengrin Follies was performed at Carnegie Hall under the auspices of the New Music Orchestral Project conducted by Jorge Mester. Recordings of four of his works are available on the North/South label: In frostiger Nacht for instrumental nonet; Sinfonia Concertante for ten instruments; Four Intermezzi for piano quartet; and the Concerto for Bassoon and Orchestra, with Carolyn Beck as soloist.
Mr. James’ work has been accorded recognition by the the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, The Juilliard School, Stony Brook University, the International Double Reed Society, and New Music USA.
FULL BIOGRAPHY
Composer Christopher James, born in Huntington, NY in 1951, began piano studies at age 8, and cello studies at 14. He began experimenting with composition on his own around age 12; his first completed composition, Two Movements for String Quartet, was performed in August 1965. While in high school he sang in musical productions and community choruses, played in orchestral and chamber ensembles, and gave a full piano recital in his senior year.
In 1969 he matriculated at Stony Brook University, where he studied composition with Billy Jim Layton, David Lewin, and Isaac Nemiroff. He presented two works in concert at Stony Brook in 1971, the Piano Quintet, and The Frost of Death for mezzo-soprano and string trio. He was awarded first prize in orchestral composition by the music department in 1973 as an undergraduate competing in a field that included graduate students. The prize-winning work, En una noche oscura, received two readings by the University Orchestra under the direction of Arthur Weisberg. James served as music director of the PAF Theatre in Huntington from 1969 to 1971.
On leaving the university in 1975, James moved to Manhattan, where he found work as a music copyist and served an unofficial music industry apprenticeship with RCA Records and Chappell Music. In 1980 he was hired by the music publisher G. Schirmer/AMP, where he worked in the performance department and later as manager of the copyright division. In March 1981, in collaboration with composers Barry O’Neal and Jerrold Ordansky, he presented a joint concert at Carnegie Recital Hall at which three of his works were performed: the Concertino for Clarinet and Chamber Orchestra, with Joanne Scott as soloist; the First Piano Sonata (“Maldoror”), performed by Janice Weber, and Madrigali della vita nuova sung by the New York Motet Choir. The period 1975 – 1983 was also a period of intensive self-study in composition. He and Joanne Scott married in 1982; the marriage ended in divorce in 1993.
James relinquished his position at G. Schirmer/AMP in 1983 to study full-time at The Juilliard School, where his principal teachers were David Diamond and Milton Babbitt. He was awarded the MM degree in 1985, and the DMA in 1987. Two works were selected for performance at Juilliard “Focus!” festival concerts: the Octet for Wind Instruments in 1985, and String Quartet No. 1 in 1986. The string quartet was also awarded the prestigious Juilliard Prize for New Quartet Music in 1987, and received performances by the Juilliard String Quartet in New York City and at the Library of Congress with broadcasts on NPR. Other significant compositions written during the course of study at Juilliard include the First Symphony (“Salvator Rosa”), the song cycle for baritone The Wind Among the Reeds to poems by W.B. Yeats, Lohengrin Follies for orchestra, and the monodrama Beatrice Cenci for soprano and orchestra to a text adapted from Shelley’s tragedy The Cenci. He was the recipient of the Irving Berlin Fellowship while at Juilliard, and served as a teaching fellow. He was awarded a Charles Ives Scholarship by the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 1987.
Shortly following his graduation from Juilliard, James took an administrative position at New York University. His Bassoon Concerto (1991, revised 2011) is a sunny work which heralds the birth of his son Evan in 1989: the scoring includes a baby rattle. Lohengrin Follies was selected for a reading during the inaugural season of the New Music Orchestral Project, under the direction of Jorge Mester, and subsequently for a performance at Carnegie Hall, in April 1989. James held positions as organist and choir director in Staten Island and Hoboken, NJ from 1989 to 1993. The years 1990 – 1999 saw few public performances, but the composition of several ambitious vocal works, including the choral Second Symphony for baritone, double chorus, and orchestra, set to a text from Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon, the Magnificat for choir, organ and brass instruments, and three song cycles for voice and piano: Cançiones para niños for soprano; Whisper of Love for mezzo; and Vier Hölderlin Gesänge for tenor.
The drought of performances ended in 2000 with the performance of In frostiger Nacht for instrumental nonet by the North/South Consonance ensemble under its founder and director Max Lifchitz. This work was subsequently recorded and released on the North/South record label; the recording was nominated for a Grammy award in 2002. North/South and Lifchitz have in fact been a mainstay for performances of James’ works up to the present day. Six works have received premieres by North/South and four have been recorded. Significant works from recent years include the Third Symphony(2011), the Second, Third, and Fourth String Quartets (2006, 2010 and 2014), the String Quintet “An die Parzen” (2009), the baritone cycle Songs of the Tragic Generation (2007), the soprano cycle Les Aubépines (text by Marcel Proust, 2013), the cantata for chamber orchestra, chamber chorus and baritone solo entitled Hölderlin-Fragmente/Hölderlin Fragments (in German or English, 2016), the Ode for Violin and Chamber Orchestra (2018), and the Sextet for Piano, Clarinet, Horn, Violin, Viola and Cello (2019).
James retired from New York University in 2016 and now divides his time between an apartment in Manhattan and a rural residence in the Hudson Valley, with his partner Ann Marie Szabo.