Born in 1998, James Anderson-Besant grew up in Oxfordshire. He started learning the keyboard at primary school with Judith Ward, who ran the choir at St Helen’s Church, Benson; James joined the choir and later became its organist. He learnt to play the organ with James Brown at Abingdon School, where he held academic and music scholarships.

After taking a gap year as the Organ Scholar of Gloucester Cathedral, which included teaching the first girl choristers in the Cathedral’s history, James then spent four years as Organ Scholar, then Assistant Organist, of St John’s College Cambridge. With the College Choir, he accompanied services, broadcasts, recordings and tours under the direction of Andrew Nethsingha, and helped train the choristers. He has broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4, and his playing for St John’s appears on many acclaimed CD releases, including Advent Live II, Ash Wednesday, and The Psalms. An organ student of Stephen Farr, James won second prize at the 2019 Northern Ireland International Organ Competition. He graduated in 2020 with a double starred first degree in music, and during the following year supervised Cambridge music students in harmony and keyboard skills. While at university, James organised and directed student performances of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and St John Passion.

From 2021-2023, James was Assistant Director of Music at Exeter Cathedral, where he played the organ for the Cathedral’s services, and assisted Timothy Noon in the training of the choristers and in the choir’s musical rebound from the coronavirus pandemic. He also directed the St Peter’s Singers, the cathedral’s auditioned voluntary choir.