Photo credit: Richard Storrow
Born in 1991, James Wilson studied privately with Richard Craig, Karin de Fleyt at the University of Leeds and Martyn Shaw at Leeds Conservatoire.
In 2020, James starred in Quantaform, a short film based on music of the same name by Ambrose Field for solo flute and acoustic reverberations. The film, produced by Screen Yorkshire, sees him perform each movement in unusual locations across Yorkshire and the Humber, from Turkish baths to rooftops and football stadia. Quantaform was supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England. Previously, James has performed and premiered the concert version of this work at the International Festival for Artistic Innovation and the University of Leeds.
As part of his Seven Deadly Sins project, James has commissioned and premiered Sohrab Uduman’s la cupidité de souffle [Greed] for flute and live electronics and Gregory Emfietzis’s Gluttony: Live to Drink for flute and percussion. James and Sohrab presented la cupidité de souffle as part of a recital and Q&A for NottFAR’s Midlands New Music Symposium.
Wilson has premiered James Stephenson’s Magellan’s Clouds and The Constellation Mobile and has performed Takemitsu’s Meguri and Air (Howard Assembly Room), Dai Fujikura’s Poison Mushroom and Robert Bentall’s Illegal to Die (Nonclassical).
James has participated in masterclasses with the Apollo Saxophone Quartet, Wissam Boustany, Belinda Gough, Kevin Gowland, Kate Hill, Mike Mower and Ian Mullin.
He has contributed two articles to the British Flute Society journal: The Performance History of Carl Nielsen’s Flute Concerto in Britain (November 2016) and A History of New Music for Flute at the Proms (July 2016).
James is a Fellow of Victoria College of Music in flute teaching.