Simon James (musician)

Simon James (born 13 March 1954) is an English acoustic guitarist and an original member of Acoustic Alchemy. After leaving the band, he later went on to form Kymaera, a Latin-style contemporary jazz band.

Born in York, England, James was educated at Ampleforth College, North Yorkshire Leeds College of Music studying flute and guitar (Gordon Crosskey), and Trinity College of Music, London, where he studied guitar and composition with Hector Quine and David Newbold respectively. After obtaining his LTCL he joined the teaching staff at Trinity in 1977 and became guitar tutor at the Purcell School of Music in 1984. In 1981 he attended the first Master Class in Flamenco to be given by Paco Peña in Cordoba, and this traditional art from Spain became a very strong influence in his music clearly present in the early Alchemy recordings.

In 1979 James became a founding member of the band Acoustic Alchemy, leaving the band to pursue other interests in 1985. He has toured solo, with Acoustic Alchemy, with Nick Webb and with Maria Ewing and has performed on live broadcasts for radio and television.

In 1984–1985 James and Webb began a collaboration with the actress Sylvia Syms on a series of shows combining poetry and music ("The Female Principle", "If This Be Love", "Mothers And Daughters", "Love Lust And We All Make Mistakes"). This involved both writing and arranging music for the shows as well as appearing in them.

In 1987 James formed his own publishing company, Designer Music Ltd., to develop the compositional side of his work. Commissions have included a fifteen part history of bullfighting released in Spain by Planeta/Agostini in Autumn 1994, a thirteen part series on Serial Killers produced by Mainline Television in Autumn 1996 for SKY TV, and a series of commissioned arrangements which led to the creation of the band Kymaera in 1998.

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