Leader – James Widden

James Widden studied at Newcastle and Sussex Universities, and then as a postgraduate at Trinity College of Music, under the tutelage of Nona Liddell on violin and Nic Pendlebury on viola.  Since graduating he has pursued a busy career on both violin and viola - he has performed with the BBC Philharmonic, Halle, Manchester Camerata and Philharmonia orchestras, at the BBC Proms with Endymion, and at Carnegie Hall with the London Sinfonietta. He has performed many times with the London Mozart Players, including tours of Spain and China.  He is leader of St Paul's Sinfonia, a chamber orchestra based in Greenwich, with whom he has also performed several concertos including Vivaldi's Four Seasons, the Violin Concertos by Beethoven, Kurt Weill and Bartók, and double concertos by Bach, Arnold and Brahms. He has been co-leader of Opera de Baugé in France, and is the leader of the orchestra for New Sussex Opera, with many productions including the recently-recorded The Travelling Companion by Stanford. Outside of music, his hobbies include buying far more books than he's ever likely to be able to read and watching snooker.