Biography
Job Title: Lecturer
Courses Taught: BA Music with Foundation Year Creative Workshop (Contextual Studies)
Specialisms: Improvisation, creative group work, flute and saxophone
James Squire is a highly versatile musician, equally at home in jazz, pop, classical, folk and free improvisation.
Since studying at City University and the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the 1990s, he has enjoyed a varied career as a performer and teacher, as well as leading composition, singing and percussion workshops.
He has always enjoyed working with dance – an interest that he is currently developing in his role as Accompanist Manager at Northern School of Contemporary Dance.
James has toured nationally and internationally with RJC Dance and JazzXchange Music & Dance Companies, which included playing with Zoe Rahman, Winston Clifford and members of Barak Schmool’s F-ire Collective. Over the past 25 years, he has also performed with a number of other dance and theatre companies (e.g. Welfare State International, National Youth Dance Wales, Diversity Dance and West Yorkshire Playhouse). Collaborations with visual artists and musicians from diverse backgrounds have resulted in original work performed in all manner of educational and community settings, ranging from the world premiere of Alvin Curran’s “Oh Man, Oh Mankind, Oh Yeah” in Huddersfield Town Hall to a site-specific work, “Mills and Moors”, with Martin Kälberer for Marsden Jazz Festival.
He has taught at Leeds Conservatoire since 2016, having previously worked on creative performance and education projects for organisations including Opera North, Northern Ballet, hcmf (Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival) and the BBC Philharmonic, plus composition workshops with Django Bates & Human Chain.
