James Campbell

James Campbell

James Campbell is a Canadian musician best known as a clarinettist and wind soloist, and also appears as an ex-member of Enter the Haggis. His work sits mainly in classical and soundtrack-related fields, with a large recording catalogue and a long list of commissions and collaborations.

Classical performance and recordings

Campbell is described as Canada’s pre-eminent clarinetist and wind soloist. He performs in major concert halls around the world and with more than 50 orchestras, including the London Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal and the Russian Philharmonic. His discography includes more than 40 recordings.

He has received a Juno Award for Stolen Gems on Marquis Records, a Roy Thomson Hall Award, the title of Canada’s Artist of the Year, the Order of Canada and the Queen’s Golden Jubilee Medal. His recordings have also drawn international attention, including the Brahms Clarinet Quintet with the Allegri Quartet, which is voted a “Top Choice” by BBC Radio 3, and a world premiere recording of Brahms’s orchestrated Berio Sonata Op. 120 No. 1 with the London Symphony Orchestra on Cala Records. He is also associated with the Sony Classical re-release of Debussy’s Premier Rhapsody with Glenn Gould.

Collaborations and commissions

Campbell has collaborated with many major musicians, including Glenn Gould and Aaron Copland. He also tours chamber music with more than 30 string quartets, among them the Amadeus String Quartet, the Guarneri Quartet, the Vermeer Quartet, the New Zealand String Quartet, the St Lawrence String Quartet, the Fine Arts Quartet and the Allegri String Quartet.

He has had over 30 works commissioned for him. In the 2003-2004 season, he premieres Dreaming of the Masters, a jazz concerto by Allan Gilliland written for him, with the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra and the Boston Pops. Gilliland later arranges Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story for Campbell, and Campbell premiers it with the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra.

Festival work and media

In 1984, Campbell becomes artistic director of the annual Festival of the Sound in Parry Sound, Ontario. He takes the festival to England on three occasions, and it is the subject of documentaries by BBC Television, CBC Television and TVOntario. He has also been featured in Clarinet Magazine, Clarinet and Sax, Piper Magazine, Gramophone, and in Pamela Weston’s book Clarinet Virtuosi of Today.

His work extends to five television specials, and his activities as a performer include collaborations across classical repertoire, jazz and other forms.