Biography

James Tseung is a Hong Kong–born singer-songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist based in Vancouver, Canada. His work moves between songwriting, composition, arrangement, and sound, drawing from soul, R&B, jazz, vintage pop, and cinematic influences. His music often explores identity, cultural distance, solitude, memory, and the experience of living between places.
 

Since 2020, Tseung has released his original music on major streaming platforms, including his second album Vagabond(2022) and latest album Empty Room (2026). Empty Room explores isolation, relationships, faith, nostalgia, and personal growth through the metaphor of a room and the experiences that unfold within it. Combining intimate songwriting with vintage-inspired grooves, synth textures, and selective horn and string arrangements, the album develops a nostalgic and cinematic sound while retaining a distinctly DIY sensibility.

Alongside his songwriting, Tseung's practice has included instrumental composition, arranging, and soundtrack work, including collaborations with filmmaker Alan Ho. His compositions have been performed by university ensembles in settings ranging from chamber groups and wind band to jazz combo and orchestra. In 2022, he was invited to compose and arrange original tunes and hymns for his university's 50-foot bell tower, with recordings of the tower performing his compositions later incorporated into Vagabond. In 2023, he conducted the university orchestra in a performance of his orchestral work Theme of 1A.

As a multi-instrumentalist and performer, Tseung has worked across concert band, jazz, musical theatre, and worship settings, primarily on drums and percussion, with additional experience on keyboards. Since 2024, he has been performing his original music with his band at festivals including TaiwanFest and Jade Music Festival.

Working across different forms while keeping songwriting at the center of his practice, Tseung continues to explore the relationship between place, memory, and sound, creating music that is emotionally intimate and stylistically eclectic.