James has been a dedicated musician for over 40 years. At an early age he received a scholarship to attend the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and then, during his undergraduate years, he wrote and had performed his first musical "Alice", was principal clarinettist with the Australian Youth Orchestra and completed his degree in musical performance.

​

In the late 80's and early 90's James worked as a film and TV post production sound engineer and was lucky enough to work closely with many of the most talented film directors and producers in Australia at that time: George Miller, Phillip Noyce, Bruce Beresford, John Duigan, Chris Noonan, Vincent Ward, Martin Armiger and many others. This work included music composition, recording orchestras for film music, ADR and foley work, as well as post production sound mixing. 

​

James had the privilege of working directly with George Miller by completing the music composition for the TV series Bangkok Hilton after becoming a trusted assistant to the composer Graeme Revell.

​

The Australian film industry took a dive in the 1990’s but luckily James discovered he was good at software engineering. Whilst working as a software engineer and raising two daughters over the following 25 years, James still managed to find time to continue his musical development: he completed his post graduate studies in musical composition, was the musical director of multiple musical theatre productions, he was the clarinettist with the Aeon Ensemble, he was the principal clarinettist of the North Sydney Symphony Orchestra, he wrote and recorded his own theatre songs, as well as orchestrate and conduct various ensembles.

​

In early 2021 James sold the software development company he founded and is now back to working on music composition full time. 

James continues to enjoy playing the clarinet at a high level of expertise when relaxing from composing.