Iskra Strings is James Underwood, composer, violinist and musical collaborator.
Moving to London to study at the Royal College of Music in the mid ‘90s, James immersed himself in the city’s diverse nightlife, forging a lasting passion for working in, and often bringing together, seemingly disparate musical worlds. Forming the Iskra String Quartet, James cut his teeth touring across Europe with late Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, who he met on MySpace. The quartet recorded the album ‘Iskra’, featuring new works by Peter Gregson, Isobel Waller-Bridge and David Julyan.
Not content with confining himself to the upper reaches of contemporary classical music, James has worked closely with The xx to help them realise their vision on the number one albums ‘Coexist’ and ‘I See You’. He has collaborated with Vampire Weekend, Sufjan Stevens and Maribou State as well as Ólafur Arnalds and Dustin O’Halloran..
His most extensive collaboration to date is with Paul Dixon aka Fyfe, releasing the Fyfe & Iskra Strings albums ‘Extended Play’ in 2019 and ‘Interiority’ in 2022. The latter featuring collaborations with Ghostpoet, Kelly Lee Owens, Aquilo and Rae Morris. Combining contemporary electronics and emotional song writing with James’s dynamic string compositions, the albums have won many fans at press and radio as well as well as amongst advertising creatives and music supervisors.