Equally comfortable in later repertoire his performances include Flute in Britten’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream with Dalia Stasevska at Glyndebourne Festival and also for Garsington Festival under Douglas Boyd , The Son in Laurent Pelly’s production of Les Mamelles de Tiresias (winner of Best New Opera Production at the 2022 Opera Awards) with Robin Ticciati also for Glyndebourne Festival, Holy Fool Boris Godunov with the Philharmonia Orchestra under Jakub Hrůša. Lechmere Owen Wingrave for Grange Park Opera, Sellem in Stravinsky’s The Rake’s Progress with the Munich Philharmonic and Barbara Hannigan and a number of performances of Stravinsky’s Pulcinella with orchestras including the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Orchestra, Copenhagen Philharmonic with Barbara Hannigan, Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Orchestra Sinfonica de Milano with Alpesh Chauhan OBE.

This coming season’s highlights include a return to the Göteborgs Symfoniker for Mozart Requiem under Barbara Hannigan, Die Schöpfung with the CBSO under Kazuki Yamada, several performances of Handel’s Il Trionfo del Tempo e del Disinganno Tempo with the Irish Baroque and on tour with Les Arts Florissants under William Christie, Handel Solomon Zadok at the Goettingen Handel Festival with Georg Petrou and with the Gabrieli Consort and tours with The English Concert and Harry Bicket. Recitals this season include collaborations with Julius Drake and Richard Watkins, Lute songs with Elizabeth Kenny and the complete Britten Canticles at Milton Court alongside pianist Natalie Burch. He will also release a new recording of the Canticles for Delphian Records.

In demand as an interpreter of Handel, his performances of Messiah have won praise with orchestras internationally including Handel & Haydn Society Boston, Les Arts Florissants, Freiburger Barockorchester, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment and Dunedin Consort. His debut as Jupiter in Handel Semele at the Musikverein was the start in a long line of Handel roles including Samson (title role), Acis and Damon Acis & Galatea and L’allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato. He performed Zadok Solomon with Harry Bicket & the English Concert at Carnegie Hall, Lurcanio Ariodante with Il Pomo d’Oro and La Resurrezione with Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre.

Other recent highlights include the Young King in George Benjamin’s Lessons in Love and Violence with Orchestre de Paris conducted by the composer, Bach St Matthew Passion with Les Talens Lyriques under Christophe Rousset and as the Evangelist with the Irish Baroque Orchestra and Peter Whelan and Acis & Galatea Acis and L’incoronazione di Poppea Lucano with Harry Bicket and the English Concert.

James has a growing discography including Handel L’Allegro, il Penseroso ed il Moderato with Les Arts Florissants and William Christie and Stanford Requiem with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, on Hyperion, ‘Songs of Faith, Love and Nonsense,’ a disk of Stanford songs recorded with Roderick Williams and Andrew West, Purcell’s Fairy Queen with Gabrieli Consort, conducted by Paul McCreesh and King Arthur, which won BBC Music Magazine’s Recording of the Year.

James is a former Britten-Pears Young Artist, and was awarded an Independent Opera Voice Fellowship. He was the winner of the Second Prize in the 62nd Kathleen Ferrier Awards at Wigmore Hall.