i’m an experimental composer-performer.
i live in birmingham. i am finishing my phd, a project involving working with experimental theatre company stan’s cafe. i am northern-irish. i studied music at the university of york and i studied experimental performance at the royal birmingham conservatoire. i am the director of a m o k: an experimental music and performance platform. I was part of sound and music’s 2019 cohort of composer-curators.
i do things. i make things. i do the things i make. i make the things i do. i do things that other people make. i make things for other people to do.
i have made music for people to sing on their bikes, music for people in boxes after a dream about boxes and an opera about a tin can. i have entered a void to hear tiny sound, replicated many meals that a man had in hospital in the 1970’s, improvised on a moving bridge, made a radio play about death, performed with fellow composer-performer neil luck live onstage at the bbc proms and i won nonclassical's 2020 battle of the bands. i’ve performed in england, norway, the netherlands, france and ireland. my music has been performed in the u.s, australia and luxembourg.
i am part of a music duo; flxnflx with maya-leigh rosenwasser
“dynamic, theatrical and often downright hilarious” - nonclassical
“james’s work defies notions of convention and medium, with genre-bending performances…” - prxludes
“the results were deeply odd but strangely compelling” - tempo