Home > Faculty > James Martin
Baritone James C. Martin has won critical acclaim for his performances in opera, musical theater and concert as a versatile singer/actor and
entertainer. His artistic repertoire spans from Bach to be-bop, Busoni to Burleigh, and Berg to Bernstein. He has appeared with leading musical
organizations throughout the United States and abroad, including opera companies of Mississippi, Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Fe, St. Louis, New
York, Toronto, Strasbourg, Basel and Oslo; the music festivals of Marlboro, Ravinia, Aspen, Moab, Colmar, and Tel Aviv; and concert appearances
with NY's Continuum, Summergarden, Joy in Singing, the American Composers Orchestra, Red, Meet the Composers, the New York Festival of Song, the
Carnegie Hall Honor! Festival, Caramoor, as well as Lincoln Center's African-American History and American Songbook series.
Operatic roles include Marcello/La boheme, Escamillo & Dancaire/Carmen, Sam/Trouble in Tahiti, Mozart's Figaro, Don Giovanni and Papageno, Silvio/I Pagliacci, L'horloge Comtoise & Le chat noir/L'enfant et les sortileges, Noah/Noye's Fludde, Tarquinius & Junius/The Rape of Lucretia, Betto/Gianni Schicchi, and Pistola/Falstaff. Equally at home in musical theater and interpreting the American Popular Song, Martin's roles include Bill Starbuck/110 in the Shade, Quixote/Man of LaMancha, Billy Flynn/Chicago, Billy Crocker/Anything Goes, the Pirate King/Pirates of Penzance and Joe in Show Boat. Oratorio and concert repertoire includes Handel's Messiah; Bach's Passions and cantatas; the requiems of Brahms, Faure, and Mozart; Mendelssohn's Elijah; and Vaughan Williams' Ceremony of Carols, Hodie, and Dona Nobis Pacem.
He received his Bachelor of Music degree from Illinois Wesleyan University and his Master of Music from the Juilliard School, where he was also a Young Artist with the Juilliard Opera Center. His awards include the William Schuman prize, the SONY Elevated Standards award, a Lilly fellowship grant, and the Theodore Presser Award. He has received prizes and citations from Wigmore Hall, Joy in Singing, the Belvedere, and American Traditions Competitions.
This season Mr. Martin sings Schubert's Winterreise, Mahler's "Songs of the Wayfarer" with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, Handel's Messiah, as well as concert appearances, master classes, and recitals in Washington D.C., Virginia, Illinois, Mississippi, Idaho, and New York. James now makes his home in Jackson, Mississippi, where he serves as Artistic Consultant for the Hattiesburg Concert Association/Festival South, co-founder of the Mississippi Vocal Arts Ensemble, Voice Faculty for the Mississippi Conference on Church Music and Liturgy, and St. Thomas' Playhouse's Summer Performing Arts Conservatory Camp in Sun Valley, Idaho. He is director of the Lyric Performance Initiative and serves on faculty as Instructor of Voice at Millsaps College.
James Martin can be heard on the Naxos and Albany record labels.
