‘Chief honours for this performance go to James Ham. His flexible, deftly paced reading bore the stamp of authenticity, full of passionate Tchaikovskian ebb and flow’.
– Musical America on Tchaikovsky’s opera The Oprichnik, 2023.
‘Ham led a musical performance as satisfying as any I have heard from predominantly UK artists’.
– Hugh Canning on La Cenerentola with English Touring Opera, Opera Magazine , 2023.
British conductor James Ham enjoys a growing reputation across the orchestral, opera and ballet repertoire for his versatility, wealth of ideas, and genuine music making.
Recent performances include La Cenerentola and L’Incoronazione di Poppea with English Touring Opera, a 20-performance tour of The Nutcracker with Scottish Ballet, Oscar Straus’s operetta rarity The Chocolate Soldier with Opera della Luna, the English premiere of Tchaikovsky’s opera The Oprichnik at the Cadogan Hall, and a tour of The Great Gatsby with Northern Ballet. Other performances include concerts with the Magdeburgische Philharmonie, Neubrandenburger Philharmonie, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Brandenburger Symphoniker, Ensemble Modern Akademie, Gibraltar Philharmonic, and London Orchestra Project – which he co-founded with the Concertmaster of the BBC Symphony Orchestra.
In the theatre, James has conducted performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Le Nozze di Figaro, Eugene Onegin, Il Tabarro and Tosca. He has been assistant conductor to Edward Gardner on Peter Grimes at the Bayerische Staatsoper and La Damnation de Faust at Norwegian National Opera, Wayne Marshall on Porgy and Bess at the Theater an der Wien, and Anthony Bramall on Rigoletto at the Gärtnerplatztheater in Munich. He has also assisted on productions of L’Assedio di Calais and Belshazzar, and was the 2022 conducting bursary holder from the International Opera Awards Foundation. With Birmingham Royal Ballet, during his time as Conducting Fellow, James conducted several performances of The Nutcracker, Coppélia and The Grand Tour both in Birmingham and on tour.
His formative training was at the St Petersburg Conservatory and UdK Berlin, establishing his interest in German and Russian music from the 19th and 20th centuries, along with that of central Europe. James also has a keen interest in contemporary music, based on his specialist training as a conductor with the London Sinfonietta Academy, Ensemble Modern Akademie, and Lucerne Festival Academy, where he was Conducting Fellow.
James has assisted Edward Gardner and Vladimir Jurowski with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Mark Elder with the Bergen Philharmonic, and Karel Mark Chichon with the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie on several occasions.
