James Geer was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, as Academical Clerk in the College choir. He continued his training at Trinity College of Music, Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama (now Royal Conservatoire of Scotland) where he was a scholar on the opera course. James is a Samling Scholar and a Britten-Pears Young Artist. He has appeared as a soloist at many major UK venues, including the Royal Festival Hall, Usher Hall, Wigmore Hall, Snape Maltings, Royal Albert Hall, and St John’s Smith Square. He has performed at the Edinburgh International, Aldeburgh and Three Choirs Festivals, and has sung with the London Philharmonic, Bournemouth Symphony, Royal Scottish National, BBC Scottish Symphony and the Philharmonia orchestras and the London Handel Players.

For 10 years James was a member of the Glyndebourne chorus; he now sings in the Extra Chorus at ROH Covent Garden. He is also a member of the Academy of Ancient Music and a regular guest performer with Capella Cracoviensis in Poland. On the opera stage James has performed numerous lead and comprimario roles with Silent Opera, Britten-Pears Opera, Bury Court Opera, Bampton Opera, Caledonian Opera, and Haddo House Opera. He regularly covers roles for Glyndebourne, Glyndebourne on Tour, Scottish Opera and Music Theatre Wales.

 Together with Ronald Woodley, James has given over 40 recitals, performing works by, among others, Schubert, Schumann, Britten, Poulenc, Grieg and Sibelius. In 2019 they released a CD of songs by Holst, with première recordings of works by Joseph Holbrooke, for EM Records; in 2020 an album Façades, including songs by William Walton and Constant Lambert, for SOMM (one of MusicWeb International Recordings of the Year, 2020), and in 2021 Dreams Melting, also for SOMM, including songs by Finzi, Clarke, Ferguson, Maconchy, and Tate. James has also recorded Britten’s Sechs Hölderlin-Fragmente with Malcolm Martineau (Onyx).