About

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 in 2006 and works with opera companies and orchestras throughout the UK, Europe and North America.

A Member of the International Artist Managers’ Association, the Association Européenne des Artists Artistiques and Opera Managers Association International, he has written for Opera and Opera Now and lectured for Divas & Scholars.

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, as well as the Jury for both the 2024 Mastersingers Carole Rees Awards and Hurn Court Opera Competition and the 2025 Elizabeth Connell Prize.

He has also been invited to undertake coaching sessions for Royal Northern College of Music, Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Drama, Dorset Opera Festival, North Wales Opera Studio, Pelegian Opera Festival,Vienna Opera Academy, 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 as Most Resilient Artist Manager.