Since graduating he has conducted over 1,500 works in 20 countries throughout Western and Eastern Europe, North America, Africa and Asia, and in Westminster Abbey and leading UK concert halls including the Royal Festival Hall and St. John's, Smith Square, London, Symphony Hall, Birmingham and the Sheldonian Theatre, Oxford, where he performed Beethoven's 9th Symphony for the 350th anniversary in 2014.
[2][3][4][5] In 2013 he gave the first orchestral concert at Sri Lanka's new national performing arts venue, the Nelum Pokuna Theatre, Colombo, with the Commonwealth Festival Orchestra.[6][7][8] He was music director of the Oxford Opera Company and the Christ Church Festival Orchestra.[9][10] Since 2006 he has been music director of the Sidcup Symphony Orchestra[4] and since 2020, artistic director of Kent Sinfonia. Other previous positions include with Oxford University Sinfonietta and St Albans Symphony Orchestra.[11][12] In 2021, he conducted the Ankara City Philharmonic Orchestra (Ankara Kent Filarmoni Orkestrası)'s first concert, held at Ankara's new Presidential Symphony Orchestra Hall.[13] His album 'Royal Throne of Kings', of previously unrecorded works by Vaughan Williams for Shakespeare plays with Kent Sinfonia, released with Albion Records on 1 November 2024.[14]
James Ross has co-written several books and articles on music, including Music in the French Salon, French Music Since Berlioz, Vincent d'Indy l'interprète, and Messidor: Republican Patriotism and the French Revolutionary Tradition in Third Republic Opera. His work has also been published in journals including The English Historical Review, Opera, The Musical Times and Music & Letters.
Bibliography
Ross, James, 'Musical Performance in Post-Conflict Societies: Collaboration, Reconciliation and Community Cohesion', Defence Review, Institute of National Security Studies Sri Lanka (Volume II, July 2018). pp. 38–55.
Ross, James, 'Music in the French Salon', in French Music Since Berlioz, edited by Richard Langham Smith and Caroline Potter; Ashgate Press (2006) ISBN0-7546-0282-6[18][19][20][21]
Ross, James (2008) Messidor: Republican Patriotism and the French Revolutionary Tradition in Third Republic Opera in Music, Culture and National Identity in France, 1870–1939, edited by Barbara Kelly; University of Rochester Press. ISBN978-1-58046-272-3[22][23]
Ross, James, 'D’Indy's Fervaal: Reconstructing French Identity at the Fin-de-Siècle’, Music & Letters 84/2 (May 2003), pp. 209–40.
^Name * First Last. "Home". Ulyssesarts.com. Archived from the original on 2 November 2016. Retrieved 22 July 2016.
^Hart, Brian (May 2008). "Reviews of Books: French Music since Berlioz. Edited by Richard Langham Smith and Caroline Potter". Music and Letters. 89 (2): 266–270. doi:10.1093/ml/gcm055. Jeunes Artistes, not Auteurs pp. 55, 82. "James Ross reminds us of the vital role that salons...as composers, performers, and patrons. Ross discusses the varying impact of salons... At their best, as in those by Ross, Simeone, Howat, O'Hagan, and both those......"
^James Ross' fascinating survey of the salon traces some vitally important and little explored threads in the fabric of French music.' Hugh Macdonald, Professor of Music, Washington University in St. Louis
^'A masterly survey of a quintessentially French tradition'! Brio, March 2007
^'A remarkable contribution, and an essential work for those who are interested in French cultural history': Marie-Noelle Lavoie, 'Intersections': Canadian Journal of Music / Revue Canadienne de Musique
^'A compelling statement about the complexity of relationship between politics and art, culture and national identity, especially in fin-de siècle France, but also in many places and times besides... detailed and nuanced; concise, well-argued, and thoroughly documented. ... The volume is historically rooted in the best ways. ... The exploration of this ambivalence [about how French nationalism should be reflected in music] makes for a powerful statement. Accessible to musicologists and historians alike. A model for exploring the often-repeated, yet open-ended connections between music and politics, culture and identity.' Sindhumathi Revuluri, Journal of Musicological Research