Into the Labyrinth - Concert at DiMenna Center, June 11, 2024

Musical works by Christopher James have been featured in concerts by the Juilliard String Quartet, New Music Orchestral Project, North/South Consonance Chamber Orchestra, Juilliard “Focus!” Festival, NYU Concert Band, International Double Reed Society, New York Motet Choir, bassoonist Carolyn Beck, violinist Claudia Schaer, soprano Melissa Fogarty, and pianist Janice Weber. Mr. James has been the recipient of awards by the American Academy of Arts and Letters, ASCAP, The Juilliard School, Stony Brook University, and New Music USA.

His catalog includes three symphonies and other works for orchestra, chamber works including four string quartets, concertos, works for band, solo keyboard instruments, voice and orchestra, choral works, and over fifty songs.  His vocal compositions include major settings of texts by Proust, Yeats, Hölderlin, Swinburne, Donne, Shelley, Sappho, Dante, Lorca, and the Bible.  Recorded works are available on the North/South Recordings label, including the Grammy-nominated release entitled "Carnaval/Carnival".

James typically follows a middle path stylistically.  His work often employs a highly chromatic or extended tonal idiom, normative metric and phrase structure, and hybrid formal schemes that sometimes recall classical and romantic models.  Many of the works can fairly be said to be neo-romantic. Other works are atonal or serial, reflecting the dominance of serialism during the composer’s formative years.  Encounters with neo-tonal "breakthrough" works by such composers as Rochberg, Rzewski, Penderecki and Del Tredici in the 1970’s encouraged James to likewise resist the totalitarian aspects of serialism, and to concentrate instead on cultivating his "secret music," the tonal music he had been writing all along, in parallel with the serial works, and just as importantly, to learn to listen to and trust his inner voice.  This has enabled James to compose more naturally, openly, and confidently.

From lapidary, intimate songs to ambitious symphonic canvasses, the music of Christopher James presents an inner space where sensuous beauty, passionate expression, and humanistic values are celebrated.