James Reese, tenor

James Reese is a frequently sought soloist and collaborative musician. His 2019-20 season saw solo debuts with American Bach Soloists, the Gamut Bach Ensemble, Tempesta di Mare, the Harrisburg Symphony Orchestra, Piffaro, and the Master Chorale of South Florida. He also makes return appearances with Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, TENET Vocal Artists, Lyric Fest, Philadelphia's Bach @ 7 series, and Bach Vespers @ Holy Trinity Lutheran NYC.

Previously, Reese has appeared in concerts with Nicholas McGegan and Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra; the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra; Bourbon Baroque Orchestra; Masaaki Suzuki and Juilliard415; the American Classical Orchestra; and at the Ad Astra Music Festival. In May 2018, he made his Carnegie Hall solo debut in Bach's B Minor Mass with the New York Choral Society, directed by David Hayes. Of that performance, the New York Classical Review wrote, "the high, easy tenor of James Reese...floated beautifully on its own over the long, gentle lines of the Benedictus." In June 2018, he made his European debut with ensemble Seconda Prat!ca.

An advocate for new music, James Reese is a founding member of Philadelphia vocal sextet Variant 6. He has premiered works by Caroline Shaw, Ted Hearne, John Luther Adams, Joanne Metcalf, Judd Greenstein, Joel Puckett, and others. James sings frequently with leading American choruses, including The Crossing, Santa Fe Desert Chorale, Seraphic Fire, True Concord, and The Thirteen. He has recorded on the ECM, Innova, and Albany labels; including The Crossing's release of Gavin Bryars' The Fifth Century, which won a Grammy award for Best Choral Performance in 2018. He also sang on 2016 Grammy-Nominated Bonhoeffer, released by the Crossing.

James Reese is the 2018 winner of the Margot Fassler Award for the Performance of Music at Yale University, and the 2019 winner of the Career Advancement Grant from the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia. He is a graduate of Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music, where he studied with Kurt R. Hansen, Alan Darling, and Donald Nally. He completed his masters degree at Yale University's Institute of Sacred Music, where he studied with James Taylor as part of the Yale Voxtet.