James Mallinson is a record producer. He was the first winner of the Grammy Award for Producer of the Year, Classical category, and has won a total of 15 Grammy Awards in his career, his most recent Grammy nominations - and wins - having come in 2008 for Best Opera Recording. He won his first three Grammy awards in 1979, when he was named Classical Producer of the Year, and won another four in 1982. He spent twelve years with the Decca Record Company and became a freelance classical producer in 1984. He has worked with all the major record labels and with most leading classical artists. In 2000 he was closely involved in the creation of LSO Live, the London Symphony Orchestra's in house record label and has produced all their releases to date - currently 65 CDs.
By 2001, he was noted to have "won more Grammys than any other classical record producer except for Thomas Z. Shepard", with whom he was tied. His most recent venture is a record label for the Mariinsky Theatre and their music director Valery Gergiev in St Petersburg. The first projects on the Mariinsky label were released in 2009 and have been nominated for the 2010 Grammys to be presented on January 31 in Los Angeles. He is also closely involved with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's 'Resound' label winning their first Grammy in 2008.