​​​​​​​​​​James Sheppard
Composer . Performer . Educator

James and his colleague Louis Arques recorded this Locrian Waltz for Bass Clarinet and Piano at the beginning of Summer 2025. This is the first part of his Modal Dances concert music series.

James accompanies Terrence on a poetry reading of Rita Dove’s “Love” and Langston Hughes’ “Love Song for Lucinda”. This performance was part of Thorgy Thor’s “Queen of the Night” Valentine’s special on WQXR in 2024.

A video of James recording the opening fanfare to Sasha’s first one-woman show. Recording took place at Moon Recording in Greenpoint, BK in 2020.

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Here is their delightful advertisement for the Joco Cruise 2025!

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In the Fall of 2024, James and Matt released their album Fat Boy Ingénue. This album is a huge collaboration of many musical forces from downtown NYC shows past and present. James’ original arrangements are featured on Make You My Lover, My Kingdom for a True Love, Love Me the Way I Am, I Hate Your Boyfriend, Dangerous, Darling, Why? and Ain’t Got No…I Got Life.

Shot in Brooklyn’s Kings Theater, this dance sequence features an original soundtrack inspired by Bob Fosse’s Rich Man’s Frug and the Kanonenliede from The Threepenny Opera by Weill and Brecht.

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Filmed at NYC’s City Winery, James and Thorgy end their 2024 Christmas Tour with this original arrangement of a Holiday classic.​

James’ Orchestral Thesis for his Master’s degree in Classical Composition at the Manhattan School of Music. This is a programmatic depiction of the rise and fall of America's greatest industrial city. Starting with a battle between French, British and American anthems (signifying the early days of settlement), this piece quickly transitions into a calamity of industrial sounds and Motown musical idioms. Using pivotal landmarks and events, eventually the work moves to a dark prediction of this city's future. After representative music for one of the worst race-riots in American history, "Detroit" comes to a sobering conclusion.

During Covid James took a crack at learning a bit of electronic music production. He wrote and produced two songs for his singer-songwriter alias Casseo. With help from his friends at Moon recording in Brooklyn, he had these two tracks mixed and mastered by the end of 2020.

As featured portraits in Gregory Kramer’s DOWNTOWN book, James and Daphne close this Joe’s Pub concert with a delightful medley from their Club Cumming show “The Happiest Hour”.

James sings one of his favorite tunes from the American Songbook, video recorded at the Diller-Quaile School of Music in 2018.

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Video recorded in his UES Studio Apartment in 2020.

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Video recorded for the Diller-Quaile School of Music’s Summer Music Program in 2019.

Commissioned for Justin Austin’s “American Perspectives” concert series, James provided a fresh arrangement of the Shaker Melody Simple Gifts for pianist Tamara Kim in August 2022.

In anticipation of their Christmas tour, James and Thorgy can be seen backstage and rehearsing their arrangement of “O Holy Night” on Paramount’s Portrait of a Queen. James is featured at time markers 8:02 and 15:43 to the end.

A new composer-friendly dating app “Thorgle” has just come on the scene and James provides the musical excerpts for this delightful guessing game. This performance was part of Thorgy Thor’s “Queen of the Night” Valentine’s special on WQXR in 2024.

On behalf of the Diller-Quaile School of Music’s Faculty Recital series, James premiered his song “Yellow”. Words by Anne Sexton, featuring Soprano Nicole Haslett in June 2024.

Written for their Laurie Beechman residency in Spring 2023, James and Daphne perform the title song from their show By a Thread on the mainstage of the Joco Cruise.

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"Pirate Jenny” is a drag adaptation of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht’s 1928 song of the same name from The Threepenny Opera. This video was shot in various spots following Sasha’s Brooklyn nightlife including Bizarre Bar which is no longer running.

James leads the band for Daphne’s Wedding to herself! Featuring an original classical wedding medley to open the show.

Leading the band for Daphne Always’ series of Joe’s Pub performances, James and Daphne capture a delightfully candid soundcheck and rehearsal of this Björk arrangement in November 2019. Featuring musicians, Jojo Soul, Sean Richey, Kim Wetzel and Thesan Polyanna.

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During Covid James took a crack at learning a bit of electronic music production. He wrote and produced two songs for his singer-songwriter alias Casseo. With help from his friends at Moon recording in Brooklyn, he had these two tracks mixed and mastered by the end of 2020.

James’ arrangements, original compositions and bandleading is featured on this live album from their Joe’s Pub Series!

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Performed by the composer: This composition is a blending of three of my favorite creative outlets: film, music and New York. The music used for this film is an aleatoric piano piece I composed a year ago entitled “Nightscape August”. It is a piece comprised of different musical blocks. The performer has the choice of which order to play the blocks under a specific duration. The performer must always return to the initial block of the piece after playing a set number of the later blocks. The piece can be no shorter than four minutes and no longer than five.

Video recorded for the Diller-Quaile School of Music’s Summer Music Program in 2019.

Video recorded for the Diller-Quaile School of Music’s Summer Music Program in 2019.