James Sinclair is an American classical conductor who studied at Indiana University. He taught at the University of Hawaii before moving to New Haven, Connecticut, in 1972. Sinclair became the music director of Orchestra New England in 1974, a position he has held for over 50 years. He also served as the music director of the Yale Symphony Orchestra between 1994 and 1995. Throughout his career, Sinclair has been a specialist in the music of Charles Ives. He published the book A Descriptive Catalogue of the Music of Charles Ives (1999) with Yale University Press and served as the music director for the PBS documentary A Good Dissonance Like a Man. He also oversees the Charles Ives papers as an Associate Fellow of Berkeley College. Sinclair has recorded a complete set of the orchestral music of Charles Ives for the Naxos label.
