Born in London, conductor/composer James Burton was head chorister at Westminster Abbey and holds degrees in music and orchestral conducting from Cambridge University and the Peabody Conservatory. Mr Burton is currently Choral Director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Conductor of the Tanglewood Festival Chorus. He has conducted concerts with the RLPO, the Boston Pops, OAE, the Hallé, Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Royal Northern Sinfonia, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC Singers, and he is a frequent guest of the Mexican National Symphony Orchestra. Mr Burton has conducted opera performances at ENO, ETO and Garsington, and has worked as assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera and Opéra de Paris. He was Music Director of Schola Cantorum of Oxford (2002-2017) and Choral Director at the Hallé Orchestra (2002-9), where he founded the Hallé Youth Choir and won the 2009 Gramophone Choral Award. He frequently works with young musicians, and in 2017 he was guest conductor of the National Youth Choir of Japan. In 2018 he founded the Boston Symphony Children’s Choir.
Mr Burton’s growing composition portfolio includes works commissioned by the Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Exon Festival where he was composer in residence in 2015. His works have received premieres on BBC Radio 3, and have been performed and recorded by many leading choral groups including the Sixteen, Tenebrae, the BBC Singers, ORA Singers and the Choir of St John’s College Cambridge. His most recent work The Lost Words is based on the book by Jackie Morris and Robert Macfarlane, and is a 35-minute piece for upper voices and orchestra (or piano). It is a co-commission between the Hallé Concerts Society and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Mr Burton’s works are published by Edition Peters.
