James Taylor
associate professor (adjunct) of voice and adviser to the program in voice: early music, oratorio, and chamber ensemble.

The American lyric tenor James Taylor joined the Yale faculty in 2005 after serving as professor of voice at the Musikhochschule in Augsburg, Germany, since 2001. He is one of the most sought-after oratorio singers of his generation, appearing worldwide with such renowned conductors as Christoph Eschenbach, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, Christoph von Dohnányi, Herbert Blomstedt, Daniel Harding, Bernard Labadie, Harry Christophers, Osmo Vänskä, Phillipe Herreweghe, René Jacob, Ivan Fisher, Ton Koopman, Michel Corboz, and Franz Welser-Möst, and touring extensively with Helmuth Rilling. Important guest appearances have included concerts with the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Berlin Philharmonic, the Concentus Musicus of Vienna, the Toronto Symphony, Tafelmusik, the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig, the Orchestra of St. Luke’s, the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Los Angeles Symphony, the Houston Symphony, the Israel Philharmonic, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and the San Francisco Symphony. His more than thirty-five professional recordings on CD include Dvorák’s Stabat Mater, Mendelssohn’s Paulus and Elijah, Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Händel’s Messiah, Bach’s B Minor Mass and Christmas Oratorio, and the songs of John Duke. A recording of Scottish and Welsh songs by Franz Josef Haydn, with Donald Sulzen and the Munich Piano Trio, has recently been released. Professor Taylor is one of the founders of Liedertafel, a male vocal quartet, which has appeared in major European music festivals and recorded for the Orfeo label.  Important future engagements include performances of Mozart’s Die Schuldigkeit des ersten Gebots with Nikolaus Harnoncourt in Salzburg, four performances of Bach’s St. Matthew Passion with the New York Philharmonic under the direction of Kurt Masur in March of 2008, a tour of the Britten Horn Serenade with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in April 2008. 

B.Mus., Texas Christian University; Master’s Diploma, Hochschule für Musik, Munich.