James Widden

Strings Tutor and Assistant Conductor

James studied at Newcastle and Sussex Universities, and then as a postgraduate at Trinity College of Music, under the tutelage of Nona Liddell on violin and Nic Pendlebury on viola.

Since graduating he has pursued a busy career on both violin and viola - he has performed with the BBC Philharmonic, Halle, Manchester Camerata and Philharmonia orchestras, at the BBC Proms with Endymion, and at Carnegie Hall with the London Sinfonietta. He has performed many times with the London Mozart Players as co-principal viola, including a tour of China. He is leader of St Paul's Sinfonia, a chamber orchestra based in Greenwich, which will shortly be releasing its first CD of music by Tim Jackson.

James has been a tutor of English Schools’ Orchestra for a number of years, and assistant conductor to Robert Pepper since 2018. Outside of music, his hobbies include buying far more books than he's ever likely to be able to read and watching snooker.