James Hall is among Britain's most-noticed young countertenors, joining star countertenor Iestyn Davies for the duet album Elegy in 2019. He has been especially noted for his work in contemporary music, which dates back to his student days and has encompassed multiple works.

Hall attended the Royal College of Music, graduating with distinction in 2012. By that time, he had already made a strong impact in vocal competitions, winning the Sir Geraint Evans Prize in 2009 and 2010, reaching the finals in the Brooks Van Der Pump English Song Competition, and winning the Somerset Song Prize in 2013. His career has shown promise in the operatic realm, in concert music, in contemporary music, and even in vocal recitals. Hall has sung in major holiday-time choral works in prominent British venues such as St. John Smith's Square (the Bach St. Matthew Passion, BWV 244) and St. Alban's Abbey (Bach's Mass in B minor, BWV 232). He has also performed Handel's Messiah with Ars Eloquentiae and Bach's St. John Passion, BWV 245, with the Lavenham Sinfonia. His operatic credits focus mostly on the Baroque and early Classical periods, including an appearance at Scotland's Opera Lyrica in the roles of Cupid and the Huntsman in John Blow's Venus and Adonis with the Dunedin Consort, and Oronte in Handel's Riccardo Primo at the London Handel Festival. His involvement in contemporary opera has been notably broad. Hall has appeared as the Soloist in Unsuk Chin's Cantatrix Sopranica in a production in Utrecht, the Netherlands, and performed in the world premiere of Na’ama Zisser’s Black Sand in The Opera Group, a project of Opera North in Leeds, UK. The late 2010s brought Hall engagements with some of the leading ensembles and conductors on the historical performance scene, including the English Concert in a performance of Handel's Rinaldo at Carnegie Hall in New York, with Il Pomo d'Oro in Handel's Ottone (as Adalberto) at the Festival de Beaune, and with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra, under conductor Masaaki Suzuki, in Mozart's Requiem, K. 626. In 2019, Hall made his recording debut with star countertenor Iestyn Davies in Elegy, an album of countertenor duets by Henry Purcell and John Blow. ~ James Manheim, Rovi