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Pianist

James Bryant

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About James

Multi-skilled musician with many years experience primarily as a keyboard player, accompanist and teacher.
Pianist
Windsor
Public liability insurance of £10 million

As a specialist keyboard and viola player, I won a scholarship to the RCM Junior Department in 1993, studying organ with Timothy Bond and viola with David Hume, and continuing piano lessons on the Music Preparatory course at Lewes Tertiary College. It was during these years as a teenager that I began to perform regularly in public at weddings, special events and concerts, and was appointed to my first permanent organ post at All Saints Church, Sidley at the age of 17. I also used to play as an occasional extra for the Maidstone Symphony Orchestra between 2004 and 2007. I obtained a BA in Music at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama in 1999, the ALCM in Piano Accompaniment Performance in 2008 and most recently a PGDip and MMus specialising in composition at the University of Surrey in 2013. I also held the post of Organist and Musician in Residence at the Royal Alexandra and Albert School between 2005 and 2008, during which time I trained as a secondary school music teacher, successfully obtaining Qualified Teacher Status in April 2007. I am currently Director of Music at LVS Ascot in Berkshire. This role has enabled me to develop and build on existing skills. For instance, I have built up a wide variety of different musicals' experience by playing piano in the pit, playing Grease and Oliver numerous times, but also Bugsy, Fame, Rock of Ages, West Side Story and Joseph. I accompany widely students of different standards, accompany ensembles and conduct a church choir every week. I have written and arranged a wide variety of solo and ensemble instrumental and vocal music since first discovering a passion for composing at the age of 12. I wrote a leitmotif for the Ratcatcher character in Diane Samuels’ play Kindertransport for a local amateur dramatic performance in 2005. Another composition, written for performance by the Royal Alexandra and Albert School senior choir at Remembrance Day 2007, was a setting of John McCrae’s In Flanders Fields, and was considered for performance at the Royal British Legion National Service of Commemoration at the Albert Hall in November 2009 by the Surrey Royal British Legion branch. This was the third song in a cycle of anthems specially written for Remembrance Day services at the school. I have also set excerpts from the text of Christopher Marlowe’s ‘Dr Faustus’ to music in a range of popular styles from the 1970s to 2000 for a show staged by the Fast and Loose Theatre Company in 2008.

Musicianship
Genres:
Traditional church music, Christmas, Contemporary Christian, Classical, Musical theatre, Opera, Baroque, Classical crossover, Contemporary classical, Film / TV music
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Instruments:
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Event types:
Wedding, Wedding proposal, Funeral / Memorial service, Church service, Hotel / Restaurant event, Private event, Corporate event, Charity event, Theatre / Show, Birthday party, Christmas party, New Year's Eve
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Other skills:
Orchestrator, Arranger, Composer, Fluent sight-reader, Instrumental teaching, Theory teaching, Composition teaching, Accompanist
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