Starting the violin at the age of 7, Jim has received tuition from various teachers, including Elizabeth Holowell, former senior lecturer in violin at the University of Auckland and Dimitri Atanassov, former concertmaster of the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra and Cremonese luthier. Jim has played with various groups, including the Auckland Youth Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra National Youth Orchestra, and Bach Musica NZ.
Jim has played in AYO since 2009 and was Concertmaster for a decade. In that time, he has been involved in two international tours to Europe, in 2011 and 2018, performing in various venues and festivals there, including the Festival of Young Artists Bayreuth and the Young Euro Classic Festival.
As a soloist, Jim performed with AYO in 2014 and 2019, playing Bruch’s Violin Concerto and the Butterfly Lovers concerto by He & Chen. He has also performed with Bach Musica NZ, playing Bach’s Concerto for Violin and Oboe with Camille Wells. He is a holder of a LTCL from Trinity College London and works as an acoustic engineer for Agile Engineering Consultants.