“One of the most gifted and sincerely expressive artists to have emerged in recent times” (Daily Telegraph),

James Ehnes has established an international career of rare distinction. James Ehnes has gained a pre-eminent reputation among the world's great concert violinists. He has performed with scores of internationally renowned conductors and has appeared with orchestras and in recitals around the world.

James Ehnes was born in 1976 in Brandon, Manitoba. He began violin studies at the age of four, and at age nine became a protégé of the noted Canadian violinist Francis Chaplin, with whom he worked closely for several years . For several summers he studied with Sally Thomas at the Meadowmount School of Music, continuing his studies with her in 1993 at The Juilliard School. He graduated from Juilliard in 1997, winning the Peter Mennin Prize for Outstanding Achievement and Leadership in Music.

Mr. Ehnes first gained national recognition in 1987 as winner of the Grand Prize in Strings at the Canadian Music Competition. The following year he won the First Prize in Strings at the Canadian Music Festival, the youngest musician ever to do so. At age 13, he made his orchestral solo debut with the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal. James Ehnes has won countless awards and prizes, including the first-ever Ivan Galamian Memorial Award and the Canada Council for the Arts prestigious Virginia Parker Prize.

James Ehnes's 2005-2006 season will feature concerts with the Berlin Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the New York Philharmonic, the NHK Orchestra in Tokyo, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège, symphony orchestras in Chicago, Toronto, Montreal, St. John's, Sarasota, Thunder Bay, Grand Rapids, Indianapolis, Calgary, Denver, Fort Worth, and the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop. Recitals take him to Kitchener-Waterloo, Quebec City, and Montreal.

In the last year James Ehnes released 7 recordings. Ehnes won JUNO awards in 2002 and 2003 for his recordings Bruch’s Concerto No. 2 & Scottish Fantasy with l’Orchestre symphonique de Montréal (CBC Records) and Bruch’s Concertos nos. 1 and 3. His first JUNO came in 2001 for Bach’s Six Sonatas & Partitas for Solo Violin (Analekta) for which he was also named Young Artist of the Year at the 2002 Cannes Classical Awards. Ehnes’s debut recording of Paganini’s 24 Caprices (Telarc), made at age 19, continues to receive critical and popular acclaim.