James J. Myer

American keyboardist James J. Myers enjoys a dynamic career on three continents as vocal coach, recitalist, composer and clinician. Sharing international stages with artistic luminaries, he joined Renée Fleming with Indie Songs, Strauss’s Vier letzte Lieder with Christine Brewer, Philip Glass for In the Penal Colony, and Star Trek stars John de Lancie and Robert Picardo at Denver’s Center for the Performing Arts. With composer John Adams and Maestra Marin Alsop’s Opera Colorado production of Nixon in China, James was featured on the Kurzweil synthesizer for the critically acclaimed Naxos album.  Film composer Marvin Hamlisch invited James for in-concert duo piano improvisations, he worked with distinguished composers Jake Heggie and Tom Cipullo, supported Canadian conductor Bernard Labadie’s new Messiah performances as harpsichordist, and accompanied Chris Thile for the debut of his brilliant Mandolin Concerto.  In masterclass settings he joined forces with Wagnerian Linda Watson, Jane Eaglen, Frederica von Stade, Abby Simon, baritone Michael Mayes, Israeli composer Abraham Kaplan, and Russian artists Zvi Zeitlin and Soulima Stravinsky.

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As masterclinician James has presented on a wide range of topics including Lieder syntax, free improvisation, Baroque embellishment, brass repertoire collaboration and sacred music leadership.  With Chinese violinist Dr. Lin He he’s performed in numerous national recitals and masterclasses featuring the Berg Violin Concerto and sonatas by Saint-Saëns and Prokofiev.

 

Through a New York Arts Grant he developed innovative percussion programs in Manhattan with Percussia’s Ingrid Gordon, and formidable cabaret with Laura Ethington on Broadway.  In Athens, Greece, he performed classical and traditional Greek music with Greek-American mezzo Eleni Stratigos, collaborated with living female composers, and launched the world premiere of his song cycle based on female Greek poets.  Fuller Theological Seminary, Texas A & M Corpus Christi, Virginia Tech School of Music, Louisiana State University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa welcomed his creative courses.  Through Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts James designed multi-media exhibition lectures for sold-out audiences including Music of Matisse; Goya:  Tonadilla and Zarzuela; World Architecture and Acoustics:  Beijing, London and Vienna; and Viennese Musical Modernism of Klimt and Schiele, among others.

 

He’s enjoyed a long affiliation with Boston Lyric Opera, preparing Madama Butterfly, Der fliegende Halländer, Rigoletto, Die Zauberflöte, La Traviata, Die lustige Witwe and Kátya Kabanová, as well as most pre-performance lectures.  As opera faculty at the Boston Conservatory, Prof. Myers prepared contemporary operas Hydrogen Jukebox, The Crucible, Ours, Dead Man Walking, El Gato con Botas, and Flight, as well as Turn of the Screw, Rake’s Progress, Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte, The Consul and Eugene Onegin.

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In collaborative and solo piano James won prizes in national and international competitions including the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes, Germany; the Kneisel Lieder Competition and Performance Certificate, Eastman School, New York; Music Teacher’s National Association Competitions, Michigan; The Stravinsky Awards International, Illinois; ASCAP Foundation Composition Competition, New York; and the International Education Grant for studies in France.  His coaching students secured contracts at New York’s Metropolitan Opera, Staatsoper Berlin and Vienna, Bregenz, Opera Saarbrücken, Glimmerglass, Los Angeles Opera, Santa Fe, Central City, Lyric Opera of Chicago, Merola San Fransisco, and won scholarships to Curtis, Indiana, and the Vienna Conservatory.  His previous faculty positions include Chapman University Conservatory of Music, Los Angeles; Metropolitan State University of Denver; and Pacific Lutheran University.  He holds degrees with distinction in collaborative and solo piano, Baroque performance practice, literature and musicology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and the Eastman School of Music.