Dr. James Allen, from Savannah, Georgia, is a tenor who studies with Dominic Armstrong. He has been seen on stage in roles such as Tamino (Die Zauberflöte), Pâris (La Belle Hélène), Peter Quint (The Turn of the Screw), Don Ottavio (Don Giovanni), Sam Kaplan (Street Scene), Orfeo (L’Orfeo), and Dr. Neville Craven (The Secret Garden). He has been a Young Artist with the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory and Musiktheater Bavaria, a Vocal Fellow with the Spoleto Festival USA, and attended the Castleton Immersion Program as a singer and to play Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe with Dominic Armstrong. This summer, James returned to the Spoleto Festival USA to perform in Thaïs by Jules Massenet and Bach’s Mass in B-Minor. James also traveled to Spoleto, Italy, to participate in the Spoleto Vocal Arts Workshop led by international opera singers Jeremy Carpenter and Matthew Rose.

James has been a classical pianist for 17 years studying under Mrs. Suzanne Woodrum in Savannah and Dr. David Murray while at Georgia Southern University. He has been the Répétiteur for singers preparing roles in Carmen and La Sonnambula for performances at the Atlanta Opera and The Opera People in Singapore. Recently, James performed Robert Schumann’s Dichterliebe alongside his voice teacher, Dominic Armstrong, at the Castleton Festival.

James is an avid choral singer having sung in the Georgia Southern Chorale and Southern Gentlemen under Dr. Shannon Jeffreys, the Spoleto Festival USA Vocal Fellow Chorus under Dr. Joe Miller, and Limited Time Only, the University of South Carolina Alumni choir, under Dr. Alicia Walker. He is currently a Cathedral Singer at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Columbia, South Carolina. This fall, he will join 11 other singers for the VOCES8 US Scholars program – a professional development program for the nation’s best up-and-coming choral singers led by the Grammy award-winning ensemble, VOCES8. James is also on the rosters of the professional choirs Servire and the Vocal Arts Ensemble: Cincinnati.

James has earned degrees from the University of South Carolina and Georgia Southern University. His dissertation is titled "A Performance and Pedagogical Guide to the William Butler Yeats Songs by Ben Moore."