Born in London, James Burton studied music at Cambridge University and orchestral and opera conducting at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore with Frederik Prausnitz and Gustav Meier. As a boy he was head chorister at Westminster Abbey and while still a student enjoyed a professional singing career giving countless performances as a member of The Monteverdi Choir, The Sixteen and Polyphony. Since completing his conducting studies, he has developed into one of Britain’s leading young conductors and, as well as working in operatic and orchestral fields, he has earned a formidable reputation for his work with choirs.

Recent engagements have included his debut with the RLPO, and conducting at a special concert to mark the 150th Anniversary of the Hallé. In 2007 he succeeded Richard Hickox as Music Director of the St Endellion Easter Festival. He has been Musical Director of Schola Cantorum of Oxford since 2002, and he also works frequently in Manchester where he is Choral Director at the Hallé, and has received outstanding critical coverage for his work with Mark Elder, the Hallé Choir and the Hallé Youth Choir which he founded in 2003.

James’s guest conducting has included work with The Gabrieli Consort, Netherlands Radio Choir, Wroclaw Philharmonic Choir, Oxford Philomusica, Durham Sinfonia and in summer 2008 he will work with the Choir of the OAE at the BBC Proms. His opera work has included Donizetti Imelda de Lambertazzi with Opera Rara and the OAE, and he is senior music staff at Garsington Opera where productions have included Ariadne auf Naxos, Arabella, The Rake’s Progress, Tchaikovsky’s Cherevichki and Rimsky-Korsakov’s Mayskaya Noch’.