INGRID JAMES is a Queensland-based, Australian jazz singer and voice educator. She has recently completed her Masters of Music Studies (Vocal Pedagogy) at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music and has a private studio practice for 20 years. Alongside her private teaching practice, she has been mentor, tutor and guest lecturer at various music institutions and schools as well as a facilitator of workshops in Brisbane with visiting national and international artists.
As a singer, recording artist and lyricist, Ingrid has had the privilege of being invited to work with talented musicians from around the world including Bill Watrous and Eric Marienthal on two recording projects based in Los Angeles with San Gabriel 7 called “Lost My Heart” and “Blue Confluence”.
Her local interests include producing and hosting a Jazz Singers’ Jam Night since 2001, principally at the Brisbane Jazz Club). She is also Festival Director for the Brisbane Vocal Jazz Festival (from 2016 to the present) and Producer of International Jazz Day 2019 @ Brisbane Jazz Club/MBS Light (sponsored by Brisbane City Council), Producer/Host – Voices of Tomorrow (2020 to present) for high school jazz instrumentalists and vocalists.
Professor Pete Churchill, Royal Academy of Music, London observed when reviewing a recent international CD joint project with Alexis Tcholakian called “Trajectoire“, that “most musicians begin their musical journey within their own community – this is where they receive the support and encouragement they need to develop and hone their skills. As time progresses they play further afield and interact with an increasingly wider circle of musicians and this can often take them away from home – a necessary migration in order to gain a broader perspective on the music they make. A few of these artists, a very few, spread out beyond their homeland and begin to take part in the global experience of making music…Ingrid James is one of these. A restless, spirit, Ingrid ventures far beyond Australian shores to Europe to record with an impressive array of international musicians – and yet, most importantly, she never forgets where she’s from. She manages to balance this strong global instinct with a massive commitment to making music in her own community…a rare thing indeed…”.
Newmarket Music has released 5 of Ingrid’s CD’s, Essence (all standards with Matt Baker and Adrian Cunningham), Circumflex (duo CD with John Reeves, piano), Portrait (joint project with Ingrid James and Louise Denson – originals and re-arrangements of a few standards), Pangaea (collaboration with Paul Armstrong and Todd Harrison – all 70’s songs set to South American rhythms with jazz musicians), and Trajectoire, a joint project between Ingrid (lyricists) and French pianist/composer Alexis Tcholakian (recorded in Paris and Australia) as well as joint-project, “Colours of your Love”, by 9 piece ensemble Wild Silk Strings Project (a mix of originals and re-arrangements of songs by Erik Satie, KD Lang, Carole King, Supertramp), released nationally by MGM’s The Planet Company in early September 2018.