James Black was a Chorister at St John’s College, Cambridge, later reading Music at Magdalen College, Oxford. Postgraduate studies took him to Peterhouse, Cambridge, and then to London’s Royal College of Music, where he trained not only as a singer, but also as a pianist.

Highlights of his solo career as a countertenor (singing as James Huw Jeffries) included Nireno in Giulio Cesare at The Royal Danish Opera and creating The Caterpillar in Alexander Knaifel’s Alice in Wonderland at Dutch National Opera. He retired from singing in 2003, one of his final engagements being a recital in The Linbury Theatre of The Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, with Helen Yorke.

Following eighteen months teaching English. he set up James Black Management as a full-time concern in 2006, working with opera companies and orchestras throughout the UK, Europe and North America. A Member of the International Artist Managers’ Association, he sits on the Communications Committee of the Association Européenne des Artists Artistiques and the UK Committee of Opera Managers Association International. He has also written for Opera and Opera Now.

Perhaps best known for his work nurturing and developing the careers of young singers, he was delighted to be invited to sit on the Panel for the 2023 Clonter Opera Prize. He also undertaken sessions for the Royal Northern College of Music, the North Wales Opera Studio, the Pelegian Opera Festival, Trinty Laban, the Meitar Opera Studio of The Israeli Opera and the Fabbrica of the Teatro dell’Opera di Roma.

James Black Management won a 2022 Southern Enterprise Award for Most Resilient Artist Manager.

He is delighted to be returning to the Vienna Opera Academy.