James Moore

Musician

James Moore is a versatile guitarist with many musical personalities. Performing on a wide variety of acoustic and electric guitars, banjos, and home-made instruments, James combines the sensitivity and lyricism from his classical training with a healthy dose of improvisation, theatrics, and experimentation. Both as a soloist and ensemble player, he aims for all of his music to be unique and personal.

Places where you may have found James Moore include: at the Wulf in downtown LA performing amplified banjo compositions; at the Bang on a Can Marathon directing an orchestra of hearing deprived guitarists; at the Fringe Theater in Hong Kong presenting apocalyptic multimedia theatrical works; at the Performa Festival playing Fred Frith’s music for multiple table-top guitars; at the Kitchen performing alongside rock musicians Bryce Dessner, Sufjan Stevens and Glenn Kotche; at the Barbican Center in London playing the music of Michael Gordon with Alarm Will Sound; at the Whitney Museum performing the music of Christian Marclay with Elliott Sharp; at the World Financial Center performing on ukulele with the pop/chamber group Clogs; at Northwestern University performing on a prepared classical guitar; in Astoria, Queens, premiering a concerto for the Greek Bouzouki.

James is a member and co-director of the electric guitar quartet Dither, a group that has been gaining international recognition for precision playing and creative programming. Other projects include the folk-noise group Oliphant, the experimental band Passenger Fish, and the conceptually extreme chamber music project Ensemble de Sade.

 James is the guitarist for William Brittelle’s lip-synched pop collage Mohair Time Warp, for Matt Marks's Christian nihilist musical The Little Death, and for Jacob Cooper’s electronic pop-tragedy Timberbrit. Additionally, James performs with Object Collection, the resident experimental ensemble at playwright Richard Foreman's Ontological-Hysteric Theater.

James grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, received his undergraduate degree in guitar performance and electronic music from The University of California, Santa Cruz, and his MM in guitar performance from the Yale School of Music. His primary teachers have been Mesut Özgen and Benjamin Verdery. He currently resides in Brooklyn, NY.