VANESSA JAMES

Vanessa James is a motion picture composer. She has worked in the film/TV/advertising music business professionally since 2004. She’s been composing and playing from the age of five. She has a degree in music composition and studied with Prof Philip Wilby (composer for the BBC) and Mic Spencer (modern classical composer).

She’s scored for various formats including LA feature films, international short films with screenings at Cannes/Berlin/Rotterdam Film Festivals, feature documentaries and adverts with global broadcasting on terrestrial and cable channels for various companies including the 2011 solo piano Hyundai advert, Apple, Halifax and Kinder.

In 2011 Vanessa released Paintings on Piano, a collection of short stories told on solo piano. Vanessa used her experience in scoring for film and television to create each piece with a story and journey in mind. James created eleven beautifully rich and moving musical experiences that mirror the many facets of the human emotions capturing and musically retelling memories and events of her life thus far.

Tracks such as ‘Dandelions in the Wind’ or ‘The House I Grew Up In’ infuse the listener’s imagination to re-create their own pictures and experience the atmosphere of each story, or simply to allow the beauty of the solo piano to carry listeners on an emotive journey. Although Paintings on Piano is a classical album, it incorporates filmic and even some popular musical influences. It is passionately played and features ethereal piano effects, solo cello, and a duet. She performed all the pieces as well as having designed and illustrated the album artwork.

In addition to composition she writes and plays keyboard/synths in the orchestral anthemic rock band Starling.