Currently only offering online lessons (WhatsApp, Facetime, Zoom, Teams etc.)

Professional double and electric bass player and senior lecturer in music (ensembles, improvisation, composition, 1 to 1 lessons) at Leeds Conservatoire from 2018-2024. James was born in Dudley, England in 1991. He has studied in Birmingham, Paris and Berlin, and is now based in Berlin, working around Europe as a musician (double/electric bass), educator and composer. He performs mostly in fields of jazz, improvised and contemporary music as a soloist, sideman and bandleader and employs a holistic and collaborative approach to music making.

As a teacher James is fluent in multiple genres and will be able to help develop confidence in performing, learning songs, develop technique, experience in a variety of forms of improvisation etc. As a specialist in electronic composition, post-production, mixing and mastering with several digital and physical media releases, he is also now offering lessons on Ableton Live, Garageband and other DAWs.

Awards:

• Elsa Neumann Stipendium 2018 from the Berlin University of the Arts/Hanns Eisler
• Making Music’s Adopt a Composer scheme in partnership with Sound and Music, PRS Foundation and BBC Radio 3
• Composer for London Chamber Orchestra via LCO New Scheme
• Scholarships from GVL, GEMA, Musikfonds and Berlin Senate

Selected performances include: Proms at Royal Albert Hall, Birmingham Symphony Hall, London Jazz Festival, Konzerthaus Berlin, clubs and venues around Europe and collaborative projects further afield in cooperation with Goethe Institut

Selected broadcasts/recordings include: BBC Radio 3, Kulturradio RBB, BR-Klassik, Deutschlandfunk Kultur – for discography please visit my website!

Tutoring Experience:

• Fully DBS checked
• Training/experience in remote teaching and learning, 1 to 1 and groups (Leeds Conservatoire)

Senior Lecturer at Leeds Conservatoire (double/electric bass, ensemble, improvisation, composition, across all genres). Saturday Music School at LCoM (group double bass lessons and ensemble, ages 9-13).

Composer in Residence with award-winning creative enterprise Make The Paint Dance Workshop leader for Jazzlines (THSH Birmingham, ages 8-18). 12 years of private tuition in double bass, electric bass and composition.

Current students include: electric bass, double bass, bass ukulele, actor musicians (double and electric bass).

Music Qualifications & Achievements:

• University of the Arts Berlin (2016) – Music [Composition and Bass] (Masters)
• Birmingham Conservatoire (2014) – BMus (Hons) Jazz Double Bass (Bachelors)
• Recognised Teacher Status from University of Hull

Current short artistic bio

James Banner (1991) was born in Dudley, England and is now based in Berlin, working as an improvising musician and composer of mainly electro-acoustic music. Alongside his work as a soloist, he also leads a variety of genre fluid original projects and performs in many chamber music, jazz and improvising ensembles. In 2024, James will release his second solo album and the second album by his string duo Borage.

His compositional work has been commissioned and performed by London Chamber Orchestra, Leipziger Jazztage and Fractal Guitar Trio (Mexico City), and has been profiled by SWR2, RBB, DLF Kultur and BBC Radio 3. As a performer and collaborator he has worked on projects with artists, organisations and festivals such as Podium Esslingen, MaerzMusik, Berliner Ensemble, Kammermusikfestival Regensburg, Outernational, Tempus Konnex Ensemble, NDR Big Band and many more. James also works in interdisciplinary contexts and across genres as a soloist and collaborator, which has included performances with contemporary artist Paula Doepfner, an installation by light and space artist James Turrell, an installative performance by Miya Masaoka and two album recordings with Scottish singer-songwriter Rachel Sermanni.

James is also active as an educator and in socio-political aspects of music. From 2018-2023 he was a senior lecturer at Leeds Conservatoire, leading modules on contemporary improvisation, collaborative composition and bass for actor-musicians. As a working-class musicians he has taken part in panels and broadcasts on access to music and music as activism at Darmstadt Jazzforum and on SWR2. In 2023-2024 he produced the English language edition of B:jazz, the official podcast of the improvising musicians union IG Jazz Berlin, focusing on socio-cultural-political topics such as accessibility, representation, academisation and classism.