"In all of his music, James Aikman demonstrates the rare gift among contemporary composers of putting the listener inside his music, rather than outside desperately trying to get in..."
      - Music Critic Charles Staff

And according to Anthony Tommasini of the New York Times, Grammy Award Winning Soprano Dawn Upshaw and pianist Gilbert Kalish gave a "plaintively beautiful" performance of his Spring is Purple Jewelry in Upshaw's Carnegie Hall debut. His most recent CD features Grammy Award Winning Violinist Joshua Bell.

With an extensive catalogue of strikingly original music for orchestra, chamber ensembles, voice, and electronics, James Aikman’s music has been consistently awarded and honored during the past two decades and has been heard at prestigious festivals and venues including Amsterdam's Gaudeamus International, France’s Festivals International de Musique, London's Wigmore Hall, MTV, the Aspen Music Festival, the OJAI Festival, Tanglewood, The U. S. National Sports Festival (opening ceremonies), The U.S. National Figure Skating Championships (closing ceremonies), and the American Symphony Orchestra League American Repertoire Concerts.

Notable honors and awards for his music include those from The American Music Center, The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers, ASCAP (annually, 1990 - 2008), The American Symphony Orchestra League, Indiana University’s Cole Porter Fellowship, Dean’s Awards for Excellence in Orchestral and Chamber Music Composition and The Carmichael Award; Groupe de Musique Experimentale de Bourges, France; The International Society for Contemporary Music (New York 2000); The University of Michigan; Music Publisher G. Shirmer’s American Art Song Competition Winner, The United States Fulbright Fellowship Program, among others.

The majority of James Aikman’s music is published by Non Sequitur Music, Inc. Other Aikman music is published by G. Schirmer (The American Art Song Collection), and is available from Centaur Records as well as from Cultures Electroniques with support of the Ministry of Culture, France. In the summer of 2006, after years of teaching composition, orchestration , music theory, history and jazz at Indiana University, Butler University and the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and Dearborn, he founded Aikman Music, LLC.