James Metcalfe is a freelance performer and educator.  He has premiered numerous new works with the Alley Theatre, Lone Star Theatre, and Houston Grand Opera including Jekyll & Hyde, Svengali, American Vaudeville, Monky Business and Salsipuedes.  He has performed on sessions for GTE, Shell, Harvie S, Tianna Hall, the Testostertones, The Champion Sisters, Stratus and Deer Mountain Music, Working with a diverse group of artists such as Ed Calle’, Paul English, David Liebman, Josie De Guzman, Richard Brown Orchestra, Linda Eder, Jerry Lightfoot, Houstons First and Joel Olsten Ministries requires James to excel in both acoustic and electronic percussion.  He has performed at the Percussive Arts Society International Convention, been published in Percussive Notes, Modern Drummer and has a released a collection of Afro-Cuban Conga drumming transcriptions.

James received his Bachelor’s of Music Education from West Texas State University and studied percussion with James Beckham and Dr. Thomas Horst.  Post graduate study was done at the University of Iowa with Dr. Tom Davis in percussion.  He studied with Steve Houghton and Efrain Toro while attending Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California.  In addition to drumset and classical percussion James studied Ghanaian drumming with Abraham Adzenyah, Indian tabla drumming with Pandit Sharda Sahai and Afro-Cuban drumming with Michael Spiro.