Mark Andrew James is a conductor of classical music.

James was born in Limassol

Limassol

Limassol is the second-largest city in Cyprus, with a population of 228,000 . It is the largest city in geographical size, and the biggest municipality on the island. The city is located on Akrotiri Bay, on the island's southern coast and it is the capital of Limassol District.Limassol is the...

, Cyprus

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

. He studied conducting and the oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 at Trinity College

Trinity College of Music

Trinity College of Music is one of the London music conservatories, based in Greenwich. It is part of Trinity Laban.The conservatoire is inheritor of elegant riverside buildings of the former Greenwich Hospital, designed in part by Sir Christopher Wren...

, London, where he was awarded many prizes enabling him to study further with Franco Ferrara

Franco Ferrara

Franco Ferrara was an Italian conductor.After obtaining diplomas in piano, violin, organ and musical composition at the Conservatory of Bologna, Ferrara began his career as violin player in Bologna, in Rome and in Florence, with the Orchestra of Maggio Musicale Fiorentino...

 in Siena

Siena

Siena is a city in Tuscany, Italy. It is the capital of the province of Siena.The historic centre of Siena has been declared by UNESCO a World Heritage Site. It is one of the nation's most visited tourist attractions, with over 163,000 international arrivals in 2008...

. Whilst at college, Mark conducted performances of The Marriage of Figaro

The Marriage of Figaro

Le nozze di Figaro, ossia la folle giornata , K. 492, is an opera buffa composed in 1786 in four acts by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with Italian libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte, based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro .Although the play by...

and Albert Herring

Albert Herring

Albert Herring, Op. 39, is a chamber opera in three acts by Benjamin Britten.Composed in the winter of 1946 and the spring of 1947, this comic opera was a successor to his serious opera The Rape of Lucretia...

at the Collegiate Theatre, London in association with the London Opera Centre

London Opera Centre

The London Opera Centre, a school for the training of opera singers and other opera professionals, existed in England between 1963 and 1977. It was located in the former Troxy Cinema on Commercial Road in London's East End Borough of Stepney . The Troxy, with 3,520 seats, opened in 1933 and was...

.

James also participated in numerous master classes with conductors such as Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein

Leonard Bernstein August 25, 1918 – October 14, 1990) was an American conductor, composer, author, music lecturer and pianist. He was among the first conductors born and educated in the United States of America to receive worldwide acclaim...

, Zubin Mehta

Zubin Mehta

Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of western classical music. He is the Music Director for Life of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.-Biography:...

 and Sir Charles Mackerras

Charles Mackerras

Sir Alan Charles Maclaurin Mackerras, AC, CH, CBE was an Australian conductor. He was an authority on the operas of Janáček and Mozart, and the comic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan...

, where he was given the opportunity of conducting the New York Philharmonic

New York Philharmonic

The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...

, the Israel Philharmonic and the Juilliard orchestras.

James has conducted extensively in Russia, where he conducted the Yaroslavl Governor's Symphony Orchestra, the Krasnoyarsk Symphony, Voronez Symphony and the Samara Symphony at concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow, performing programmes of Russian and English music, including Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Rachmaninoff

Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of the last great representatives of Romanticism in Russian classical music...

's No. 2

Symphony No. 2 (Rachmaninoff)

Symphony No. 2 in E minor, Op. 27 is a music piece by Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, created in 1906–07. The premiere was conducted by the composer himself in St. Petersburg on 8 February 1908. Its duration is approximately 60 minutes when performed uncut; cut performances can be as...

 and No. 3

Symphony No. 3 (Rachmaninoff)

Sergei Rachmaninoff composed his Symphony No. 3 in A minor, Op. 44 between 1935 and 1936. The Third Symphony is considered a transitional work in Rachmaninoff's output. In melodic outline and rhythm it is his most expressively Russian symphony, particularly in the dance rhythms of the finale...

 and Gustav Holst

Gustav Holst

Gustav Theodore Holst was an English composer. He is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets....

's The Planets

The Planets

The Planets, Op. 32, is a seven-movement orchestral suite by the English composer Gustav Holst, written between 1914 and 1916. Each movement of the suite is named after a planet of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst...

.

Mark James has worked with many orchestras and choirs all over Britain, including the Brighton Festival Chorus, Huddersfield Choral Society, Hertfordshire Chorus

Hertfordshire Chorus

Hertfordshire Chorus, formed in 1970, is one of the leading large choirs in England with over 130 members from across the county of Hertfordshire, London and the surrounding areas, performing across the country and regularly touring....

, the Worthing Philharmonic Choir and the Sussex Chorus in programmes that have included The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius

The Dream of Gerontius, popularly called just Gerontius, is a work for voices and orchestra in two parts composed by Edward Elgar in 1900, to text from the poem by John Henry Newman. It relates the journey of a pious man's soul from his deathbed to his judgment before God and settling into Purgatory...

, Verdi's Requiem

Requiem (Verdi)

The Messa da Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi is a musical setting of the Roman Catholic funeral mass for four soloists, double choir and orchestra. It was composed in memory of Alessandro Manzoni, an Italian poet and novelist much admired by Verdi. The first performance in San Marco in Milan on 22 May...

, Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...

's Choral Symphony

Symphony No. 9 (Beethoven)

The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is the final complete symphony of Ludwig van Beethoven. Completed in 1824, the symphony is one of the best known works of the Western classical repertoire, and has been adapted for use as the European Anthem...

, Carl Orff

Carl Orff

Carl Orff was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children.-Early life:...

's Carmina Burana

Carmina Burana (Orff)

Carmina Burana is a scenic cantata composed by Carl Orff in 1935 and 1936. It is based on 24 of the poems found in the medieval collection Carmina Burana...

, Mozart's Requiem

Requiem (Mozart)

The Requiem Mass in D minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was composed in Vienna in 1791 and left unfinished at the composer's death. A completion by Franz Xaver Süssmayr was delivered to Count Franz von Walsegg, who had anonymously commissioned the piece for a requiem Mass to commemorate the...

 and Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach was a German composer, organist, harpsichordist, violist, and violinist whose sacred and secular works for choir, orchestra, and solo instruments drew together the strands of the Baroque period and brought it to its ultimate maturity...

's B minor Mass and St Matthew Passion.

In 1993 Mark James founded the Sussex Symphony Orchestra

Sussex Symphony Orchestra

The Sussex Symphony Orchestra was formed in 1993 by the current musical director Mark Andrew James. Based in Brighton, England, and consisting of both professional and amateur players, the orchestra performs large scale works and promenade concert events at venues in Sussex.-External links:**...

, which is based in Brighton and performs all over the South of England. The orchestra, having both amateur and professional musicians, performs a wide and diverse range of repertoire which has included such works as Igor Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky

Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....

's The Rite of Spring

The Rite of Spring

The Rite of Spring, original French title Le sacre du printemps , is a ballet with music by Igor Stravinsky; choreography by Vaslav Nijinsky; and concept, set design and costumes by Nicholas Roerich...

, Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

's Daphnis et Chloé

Daphnis et Chloé

Daphnis et Chloé is a ballet with music by Maurice Ravel. Ravel described it as a "symphonie choréographique" . The scenario was adapted by Michel Fokine from an eponymous romance by the Greek writer Longus thought to date from around the 2nd century AD...

, Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Shostakovich

Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer and one of the most celebrated composers of the 20th century....

's 5th Symphony

Symphony No. 5 (Shostakovich)

The Symphony No. 5 in D minor, Op. 47, by Dmitri Shostakovich is a work for orchestra composed between April and July 1937. Its first performance was on November 21, 1937, in Leningrad by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky...

, Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler

Gustav Mahler was a late-Romantic Austrian composer and one of the leading conductors of his generation. He was born in the village of Kalischt, Bohemia, in what was then Austria-Hungary, now Kaliště in the Czech Republic...

's symphonies Nos. 2

Symphony No. 2 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 2 by Gustav Mahler, known as the Resurrection, was written between 1888 and 1894, and first performed in 1895. Apart from the Eighth Symphony, this symphony was Mahler's most popular and successful work during his lifetime. It is his first major work that would eventually mark his...

 & 5

Symphony No. 5 (Mahler)

The Symphony No. 5 in C sharp minor by Gustav Mahler was composed in 1901 and 1902, mostly during the summer months at Mahler's cottage at Maiernigg. Among its most distinctive features are the funereal trumpet solo that opens the work and the frequently performed Adagietto.The musical canvas and...

, Reinhold Glière

Reinhold Glière

Reinhold Moritzevich Glière was a Russian and Soviet composer of German–Polish descent.- Biography :Glière was born in Kiev, Ukraine...

's Harp Concerto and James MacMillan's percussion concerto, Veni, Veni Emmanuel.

As well as the standard concerto repertoire, most recently including Beethoven's Emperor Concerto

Piano Concerto No. 5 (Beethoven)

The Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, Op. 73, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Emperor Concerto, was his last piano concerto. It was written between 1809 and 1811 in Vienna, and was dedicated to Archduke Rudolf, Beethoven's patron and pupil...

 with Philip Fowke

Philip Fowke

-Biography:Philip Francis Fowke studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Gordon Green, a pupil of Egon Petri. In 1974 he made his London debut with a recital at the Wigmore Hall . That year he won joint second place at the BBC Piano Competition...

 and the Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

 Cello Concerto

Cello Concerto (Dvorák)

The Cello Concerto in B minor, Op. 104, B. 191, by Antonín Dvořák was the composer's last solo concerto, and was written in 1894–1895 for his friend, the cellist Hanuš Wihan, but premiered by the English cellist Leo Stern.- Structure :...

 with Guy Johnston

Guy Johnston

Guy Johnston is a British cellist and the winner of the BBC Young Musician of the Year award in 2000. He has subsequently enjoyed a successful international career as a soloist and chamber musician.-Professional life:...

, the orchestra also regularly includes premiere performances of commissioned works by both established and emerging composers, including David Fanshawe

David Fanshawe

David Arthur Fanshawe was an English composer, ethnomusicologist and self-styled explorer. His work is situated at the crossroads of traditional and modern music. His best-known composition is the 1972 choral work African Sanctus.- Life :Fanshawe was born in Paignton in Devon in 1942...

, Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis

Paul Lewis may refer to:*Paul Lewis , American architect and professor at the Princeton University School of Architecture*Paul Lewis , African American activist who lived in London, Ontario...

, Peter Copley

Peter Copley

Peter Copley was a British television, film and stage actor.-Biography:Copley was born in Bushey, Hertfordshire, son of the printmakers, John Copley and Ethel Gabain....

 and Paul Carr

Paul Carr

Paul Carr is a British writer, journalist and commentator, based in San Francisco. He has also - as Carr writes on his official website - "edited various publications and founded numerous businesses with varying degrees of abysmal failure."-Memoirs:Carr's first autobiographical book Bringing...

, whose music he has recorded with the orchestra on the ‘Claudio Records’ label.

Amongst the orchestra's most popular concerts under Mark James's direction are the annual Opera Gala, given as part of the Brighton Festival

Brighton Festival

The Brighton Festival is an annual arts festival which takes place in the city of Brighton and Hove in England each May. It was founded in 1966, and is the largest multi-art form festival in England...

, which showcases many young and rising opera stars of today and a series of summer park prom concerts given throughout the South, to audiences of over 11,000.

As part of his work with the orchestra, Mark James has masterminded the creation of a series of workshops and sessions catering for children of all ages and abilities, through to adult further education by taking sections from the orchestra into schools and colleges, holding seminars and sessions culminating in public concerts.

In recognition of his work with this orchestra, he was nominated for a Creative Briton Award, where individuals are nationally recognised for their contributions to their art. A review in The Times described the orchestra as ‘one of the best of its type in the country’

In addition to his concert activities, James has conducted studio sessions for both film and television at ‘Hear no Evil’ and Angel Studios

Angel Studios

Angel Studios is a commercial recording studio located on the corner of Upper Street and Gaskin Street Islington, London, England.The three-studio complex is in The Angel, a renovated United Reform Church. Some internal features of the church remain in the studio, such as the original Victorian...

 in London. Films include Being Considered for Spice Factory, Jack Brown and the Curse of the Crown for Little Wing Films and Lady Audely's Secret, a Victorian melodrama for Carlton Television.

Apart from his return visits to Russia, future engagements include a visit to the new Hall for Cornwall

Hall for Cornwall

The Hall for Cornwall is a major venue in Truro, Cornwall having one large main auditorium which places host to West End musicals, opera, ballet, musical acts and other entertainers...

 in Truro with the Sussex Symphony Orchestra, a performance of Richard Strauss

Richard Strauss

Richard Georg Strauss was a leading German composer of the late Romantic and early modern eras. He is known for his operas, which include Der Rosenkavalier and Salome; his Lieder, especially his Four Last Songs; and his tone poems and orchestral works, such as Death and Transfiguration, Till...

's Four Last Songs

Four Last Songs

The Four Last Songs for soprano and orchestra were the final completed works of Richard Strauss, composed in 1948 when the composer was 84. Strauss did not live to hear the premiere, given at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 22 May 1950 by the soprano Kirsten Flagstad accompanied by the...

with Dame Felicity Lott

Felicity Lott

Dame Felicity Ann Emwhyla Lott, DBE, FRCM is an English soprano.-Education:From her earliest years she was musical, having started studying piano at age 5. She also played violin and began singing lessons at 12. She is an alumna of Royal Holloway, University of London, obtaining a BA in French and...

, concerts of French and English music in France and engagements in Estonia, Moldova and Rio de Janeiro.

External links

• SSO official website