ABOUT

JAmes Shipp is a vibraphonist, a percussionist, a synthesist, and a songwriter. For the last decade-and-a-half he has performed, recorded, and toured the world with some of New York City's best musicians. Trained as a jazz vibraphone soloist and accompanist, James's post-conservatory interests have led him to become a sought-after Brazilian percussionist, a multi-instrumentalist in bands both mostly-improvised and tightly arranged, a composer of music for experimental theater, and a versatile producer of recordings, bringing to bear his knowledge of both acoustic and analog electronic instruments on a wide range of projects.

As of late, James performs and records with much-lauded clarinetist and multiple Grammy Award nominee Anat Cohen’s Quartetinho, the Anat Cohen Tentet, Jean Rohe and the End of the World Show, Banda Magda, the Nadje Noordhuis Quintet, and Christina Courtin (Pilot Violet). He has recorded and performed with Paquito d’Rivera, Kurt Elling, Snarky Puppy, Bokante, Kate McGarry, Becca Stevens, Bob Lanzetti, The Kronos Quartet, and Sting. He was nominated for two Grammies in 2020 for his contributions on vibes and percussion to the Anat Cohen Tentet’s Triple Helix and Miho Hazama and M Unit’s Dancer in Nowhere. He is the percussionist for Mike LaValle’s Clube de Choro do Brooklyn every Sunday at Barbés in Park Slope.

As a leader, James has been performing his mostly satirical songs solo and with his band since 2016, and released The Virus Diaries as a weekly pandemic music and video series in 2020/21, and the album James Shipp Sings his Famous Songs in 2022; as a songwriter he is represented by TRO-Palm Valley Music. He has performed as a duo with trumpeter Nadje Noordhuis since 2012. In late 2017 they released their first album, Indigo, and their forthcoming release on Little Mystery Records in 2023 features ten new compositions and many layers of James’ mallet, percussion, and synthesizer playing. He is a member of the MakeSpeak Ensemble, a collaborative trio that composes and performs music for dance and theater. (They premiered the music for Jephta's Daughter at the Munich State Opera in 2015, and composed and performed music for A Monteverdi Project at Berlin’s Staatsoper Unter den Linden in the fall of 2018.) James’ band Nós Novo took improvisors’ ears to traditional Irish repertoire and released Strange Sweethearts in America to critical acclaim in 2009.

James has been a bandleader, composer, producer, and workshop facilitator for Carnegie Hall’s social impact programs for the last decade, working with thousands of people of all ages in prisons, jails, hospitals, shelters, and schools throughout New York City. He has been the musical director and producer of Carnegie Hall’s Lullaby Project since 2019, and will be music-directing and producing its Tenth Anniversary Celebration Concert in Zankel Hall in June 2023. Two of the lullabies he co-wrote through that work were featured on the 2018 Universal Music Group release Hopes and Dreams, sung by mezzo-soprano Joyce Di Donato and soprano Pretty Yende. James was the director and producer of Carnegie Hall’s youth-driven, genre-crossing Future Music Project Ensemble from its formation in 2016 until it ended during the pandemic in 2021, and was the creative director and lead educator of the music program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility for its 2015/16 season. James was a faculty artist at the Silk Road Ensemble's 2016 Global Musician Workshop, where he taught Brazilian, Irish, and Finnish tunes to students from all over the world.

JAmes earned both a Bachelor's and Master's of Music from the SUNY Purchase Conservatory of Music. He currently lives in Brooklyn, and is very happy there.