James Sullivan has been Principal Oboe of the Alabama Symphony Orchestra since the rebirth of the orchestra in 1997. Prior to this appointment, he was Principal Oboe of both the Atlanta Opera Orchestra and the Columbus Symphony. While living in the Atlanta area, James often performed with the Atlanta Symphony, with whom he recorded Bach's B Minor Mass and Mahler's Sixth Symphony. More recently, he has been invited to be a guest performer with the San Francisco Symphony and the St. Louis Symphony.
James received his Master of Music in Oboe Performance from the Boston University School for the Arts where he was a scholarship student of Ralph Gomberg. During this time, he served as Principal Oboe of the Boston Civic Symphony. His other principal teachers were Jonathan Dlouhy of the Atlanta Symphony and John Mack of The Cleveland Orchestra. He also studied for two summers at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada where he worked with Richard Killmer and Peter Bowman.
Receiving his undergraduate degree in music education from the University of Georgia, James also has an active teaching career in oboe. He currently serves on the faculties of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Samford University, and Birmingham-Southern College. He has also been guest Professor of Oboe at Indiana University. While in Atlanta, he was oboe instructor at Clayton State University and DeKalb College. Prior to teaching oboe, he taught choral music in the public schools for two years and worked closely with Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony Chorus.
During James' first season with the Alabama Symphony, he was the concerto soloist in S. Bainbridge's Concerto in Moto di Perpetuo. Since then, he has been featured with the orchestra in concertos by Francaix, Vivaldi, Vaughn-Williams, Marcello, and Bach. He has also traveled to Sibiu, Romania to perform at the Romanian American Music Festival on the J.S. Bach Double Concerto for Violin, Oboe in C minor, and the Fasch Triple Concerto for Trumpet, Violin, and Oboe d'amore in A Major.
