ABOUT
“The award-winning young conductor George Jackson exerts formidable control over the shape and pace of the action, no easy ask in such a bizarre creation”.
Jessica Duchen, The Arts Desk (Janáček, ‘The Excursions of Mr Brouček / Grange Park Opera / BBC Concert Orchestra)
“George Jackson conducted the full ENO orchestra in a magnificent account of the score, sparkling with playful humour in the dialogues and exultantly romantic in the interludes.”
Rupert Christiansen, The Telegraph (Hänsel und Gretel / Grange Park Opera)
“Performed with astounding artistry and commitment by the wonderful musicians of Ensemble InterContemporain under Jackson, Reich/Richter is given a stellar disc premiere. Translucent to the finest detail, the textures are unraveled with ever-delicate balancing, deservedly highlighting the immaculate musicianship inherent in each solo line.”
Jari Kallio, ‘Adventures in Music’ (Reich/Richter / Recording with Ensemble Intercontemporain)
“The City of London Sinfonia, meanwhile, play superbly for Jackson, an excellent conductor, wonderfully alert to the sadness as well as the humour that permeates the score.”
Tim Ashley, The Guardian (The Marriage of Figaro / Opera Holland Park)
“George Jackson conducts with a firm command of the mosaic score’s mood and meter-changing trickiness. He draws exhilarating rhapsodies from the BBC Concert Orchestra, notably the gorgeous conclusion to Act I when lovers Mazal and Malinka rejoice in their vision of a romantic Prague.”
The Stage (Janáček, ‘The Excursions of Mr Brouček / Grange Park Opera / BBC Concert Orchestra)
George Jackson is quickly making a name for the breadth and commitment of his work, whether in opera, symphonic repertoire or contemporary scores, building strong relationships with orchestras and houses everywhere he goes.
Recent opera appearances include a critically acclaimed Hänsel und Gretel at Grange Park Opera and the world premiere of Tscho Theissing’s Genia at Theater an der Wien in 2020, an opera inspired by events from Beethoven’s life in Vienna. In 2022 Jackson returns there with Il barbiere di Siviglia, as well as conducting Le nozze di Figaro at Opera Holland Park in 2021.
Equally at home in symphonic repertoire, he drew widespread attention when he stood in at short notice for Daniel Harding in Ives’s Fourth Symphony with Orchestre de Paris. He works with orchestras such as RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra, Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, Opéra Orchestre national Montpellier Occitanie and the orchestra of Opéra de Rouen.
“Humperdinck’s debt to Wagner is inescapable in this score, and George Jackson and the ENO Orchestra draw it out in a way that adds to the music’s stature without sounding merely derivative. A piercing solo trumpet in the Prelude for a moment stranded you in Parsifal, links between orchestra and singers were expertly and naturally judged, and the music’s abundance of charm, atmosphere and shameless memorability are all there for the hearing. If I were coming to this inexhaustible opera for the first time, this would be a touchstone production.”
Peter Reed, Grange Park Opera / Hänsel und Gretel, Classical Source
“Das Potenzial für einen spritzige Rossiniaufführung wäre vorhanden gewesen, zumal auch George Jackson mit dem Wiener KammerOrchester hörbar und differenziert gearbeitet hat. Jacksons Rossini hatte Humor und kurbelte den Abend „hoffnungsfroh“ an”.
Dominik Troger, Theater an der Wien / The Barber of Seville, Der Neue Merker
“Viel Anteil am Gelingen des Abends hatte Dirigent George Jackson mit den Musikern von Chor und Orchester der Kammeroper. Ein ausdrückliches, melodisch aufblühendes Klangbild.”
Bernhard Uske, Kammeroper Frankfurt / Pagliacci, Frankfurter Rundschau
“Tout aussi stupéfiante est cette partition, que George Jackson dirige avec beaucoup de souplesse, car elle relève à la fois du retour aux sources (les variations infinitésimales deMusic for 18 Musicians, en 1976) et du renouvellement (motifs orientalisants, faux prélude de Bach)pour témoigner d’une véritable régénérescence, tant de la musique que du compositeur.”
Pierre Gervasoni, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Steve Reich: Reich/Richter, Philharmonie de Paris, Le Monde
Peter Jarolin, Theater an der Wien, Tscho Theissing: ‘Genia’ (World Premiere), Kurier
Jackson’s skill in preparing complex scores has led to an ongoing relationship with Ensemble Intercontemporain. He conducted the group in the French premieres of works by Rebecca Saunders and James Dillon at the 2019 Festival d’Automne à Paris. He was involved in bringing together the premiere of Immer Weiter at Hamburg State Opera, conducting it as well as collaborating with its two young composers, Jesse Broekman and Irene Galindo Quero, and a team of creatives as part of Deutsche Bank Foundation’s Academy Musical Theatre Today. This season he has conducted Noli me tangere, a new work by Isabel Mundry, with Collegium Novum Zürich, and the world premiere of Claire- Mélanie Sinnhuber’s new work, Chahut, with Brussels Philharmonic.
As the son of actor parents, Jackson began inventing theatrical entertainments with his sister at an early age, as well as learning the violin, and later served as a drummer and guitarist in post-punk, rock and Irish folk bands, developing broad musical tastes that he retains to this day.
Jackson’s formative experiences include his participation at Lucerne Festival Academy and at Aspen Music Festival, where he was awarded the Aspen Conducting Prize in 2015. He is passionate and informed about the art and traditions of conducting, and regularly passes on his enthusiasm through podcasts on the subject.
CALENDAR
1/4/10/12/14/16/18/20/22/24/26/28
June 2021
Opera Holland Park
WA Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
Conductor: George Jackson
Director: Oliver Platt
Designer: Takis
Lighting Designer: Rory Beaton
Movement Director: Caitlin Fretwell-Walsh
Orchestra: City of London Sinfonia
Count Almaviva: Julien Van Mellaerts
Countess Almaviva: Nardus Williams
Susanna: Elizabeth Karani
Figaro: Ross Ramgobin
Cherubino: Samantha Price
Marcellina: Victoria Simmonds
Bartolo: James Cleverton
Basilio/Don Curzio: Daniel Norman
Barbarina: Claire Lees
18th June 2021
Recording for BBC Radio 3
BBC Symphony Orchestra
Jessie Montgomery: Banner
Mozart: ‘Linz’ Symphony
Delius: ‘On Hearing the first Cuckoo in Spring
21st July 2021
Studio Session, Howard Assembly Rooms
Orchestra of Opera North
Wagner: Overture to ‘Die Meistersinger’
Mendelssohn: ‘Italian’ Symphony
8 – 19
August 2021
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra: ‘Young’ Project
Brahms: Symphony No. 2
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 4
Jörg Widmann: ‘Echo Fragments’
18th September 2021
Islington Festval, London
Haydn Chamber Orchestra
Schubert: Symphony No. 6
Beethoven: Piano Concerto No. 3
Beethoven: Overture to ‘Creatures of Prometheus’
21st November 2021, 9:00pm
Parco della Musica, Rome, Italy
Ensemble Intercontemporain
Steve Reich: Reich/Richter (Italian Premiere)
Steve Reich: Eight Lines
21st and 22nd January 2022, 7:30pm
Globe News Centre for the Performing Arts, Amarillo, Texas, USA
Amarillo Symphony
Mendelssohn: Hebrides’ Overture
Lowell Liebermann: Flute Concerto (soloist: Jake Fridkis)
Sibelius: Symphony No. 2 in D Major
8/11/13/16/18/20/22/24/26/29 March 2022, 7pm
Wiener Kammeroper, Fleischmarkt 24, 1010 Wien, Austria
Theater an der Wien
Rossini: Il Barbiere di Siviglia
Conductor: George Jackson
Director: Christoph Zauner
Designer: Nikolaus Webern
Costumes: Mareile von Stritzky
Lighting: Franz Tscheck
Orchestra: Vienna Chamber Orchestra
IL CONTE D’ALMAVIVA: Andrew Morstein
FIGARO: Timothy Connor
ROSINA: Sofia Vinnik
DON BASILIO: Ivan Zinoviev
DON BARTOLO Dumitru Madarasan
BERTA: Miriam Kutrowatz
22nd and 23rd April 2022, 7:30pm
Globe News Centre for the Performing Arts, Amarillo, Texas, USA
Amarillo Symphony
Delibes: Ballet Suite from ‘Sylvia’
Prokofiev: Piano Concerto No. 3 (Soloist: Harmony Zhu)
Elgar: ‘Enigma’ Variations
June 9, 18, 26, 29 + July 7 2022
Grange Park Opera
The Theatre in the Woods
West Horsley Place KT24 6AN
Grange Park Opera / BBC Concert Orchestra
Janáček: The Excursions of Mister Brouček
Conductor: George Jackson
Director: David Pountney
MALINKA: Fflur Wyn
SAKRISTÁN / LUNOBOR / DOMSIK OD ZVONU: Clive Bayley
MISTER BROUCEK: Peter Hoare
WÜRFL / CAROSKVOUCI / KOSTKA: Andrew Shore
MAZAL / BLANKKYTNY / PETRICK: Mark Le Brocq
27th July 2022, 4pm
Benedict Music Tent, Aspen, CO, USA
Aspen Music Festival / Aspen Philharmonic Orchestra
Gomez: Overture to ‘Il Guarany’
Bruch: Violin Concerto (Soloist: Fiona Shea)
Britten: A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra
20th August 2022
Concertgebouw, Amsterdam
Royal Concertgebouw Youth Orchestra / Concertgebouworkest Young
Dvorak: Symphony No. 9 (‘From the New World’)
October 2022
Grange Park Opera
The Theatre in the Woods
West Horsley Place KT24 6AN
Grange Park Opera in collaboration with Sky Arts
Phil Porter: ‘Gods of the Game: A Football Opera’
Conductor: George Jackson
Director: Kwame Kwei-Armah
Cast tbc
November 2022
Opera Wrocławska, Wrocław, Poland
Opera Wrocławska
Verdi: ‘Rigoletto’
Conductor: George Jackson
Director: TBC
Cast TBC
December 10th, 2022
Will Rogers Memorial Center, Forth Worth, Texas
Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra
GF Handel: ‘Messiah’
George Jackson conductor
Molly Netter, soprano
Luthien Brackett, mezzo-soprano
Steven Soph, tenor
Jonathan Woody, bass
University of North Texas Vox Aquilae
GALLERY
CONTACT
Jordi Martin Mont
jordi@maestroarts.com +44 7934 568677
Sophie Farrell
sophie@maestroarts.com +44 7788 284615
Silvia Paolucci
spaolucci@melosopera.com +39 349 3002723
Markus Laska
mlaska@melosopera.com +39 348 5278616