Conductor J. David Jackson made his conducting debut in Brussels' Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in 1997 with Don Pasquale, and has since won acclaim in Europe and America with his “first-rate” conducting” (Boston Globe), “surging quality forged by the maestro” and his “love for this sublime music” (Moscow Kultura), and his “triumph, the unquestioned highlight of the season” (Denver Post).

Now in his sixth season at the Metropolitan Opera as staff conductor, Mo. Jackson makes his Metropolitan Opera house debut with Hansel and Gretel in 2008. Other credits there include prestigious productions of Rodelinda with Renee Fleming and David Daniels, Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Juan Diego Flores, Die Fledermaus with Sondra Radvanovsky, Lucia di Lammermoor with Marcelo Alvarez, La Traviata with Ruth Ann Swenson, Lohengrin with Karita Mattila and Ben Heppner, Idomeneo with Placido Domingo, Die Frau ohne Schatten with Deborah Polaski and Deborah Voigt, and Benvenuto Cellini with Marcello Giordani.

Recent seasons have seen Mo. Jackson debut with Faust in Genoa, Weber's Euryanthe at the Glyndebourne festival, and L'Italiana in Algeri at the Wolf Trap Festival. He conducted Così fan Tutte and Die Zauberflöte for the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie on highly successful tours throughout Belgium, and an innovative production of Prima la musica, poi le parole/Der Schauspieldirektor with the Théâtre de la Place in Liège.

The American maestro was in Vienna for the first concert performances since 1789 of Lorenzo da Ponte's L'Ape Musicale, with music by Mozart, Salieri, Cimarosa, Tarchi, and Martin y Soler. For West Palm Beach's Intermezzo Program he led Cendrillon, Dido and Aeneas and L'Enfant et les Sortilèges. He has also recently returned from Elektra at the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet.

Maestro Jackson's enormous operatic repertory includes everything from early Baroque to contemporary. He is particularly noted for his interpretation of French opera, especially with his brilliant 2004 success of Massenet's Le Jongleur de Notre Dame at the Central City Opera Festival. A specialist in Russian opera and culture, he has led performances of Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, and The Love for Three Oranges to great acclaim in Belgium and Germany. Recently he was at the Opéra National de Paris for Francesca Zambello's production of Prokofiev's War and Peace. Since 1996, his new ending for Mussorgsky's epic Khovanshchina is regularly performed in Brussels and elsewhere, receiving critical praise as “probably closest to Mussorgsky's original intentions” (The Times).

Mo. Jackson's commitment to contemporary opera is reflected in his recent successes with Stefan Weisman's Darkling, Deborah Dratell's Marina (both for American Opera Projects), and Lewis Spratlan's Life is a Dream, for which his performances in 2000 garnered a Pulitzer prize. This season he will also be collaborating with director Yuval Sharon on The Parsifal Project, an interdisciplinary sound-scape reinterpretation of Wagner's final masterpiece.

Mo. Jackson has recorded Garrett List's Trees with the National Orchestra of Belgium, and Bent Lorentsen's Die Musik kommt mir äusserst bekannt vor for Danish National Radio. A passionate interpreter of religious music, he frequently conducts the great choral repertory of Bach, Haydn and Mozart with Westchester Festival Orchestra and Chorus.

Mo. Jackson is also a composer, with chamber music, song cycles and two operas (The Birth of Jesus, Eva the Fair) to his credit. His Magnificat for Chorus and Orchestra was premiered in 2003 in the Cathedral of Frankfurt, Germany. He recently completed his Concerto for Violin and Orchestra, and is completing a new work for singers and jazz string ensemble on texts of British poet Henry Normal. He is also collaborating with Catalan poet Oriol Espinal on a new opera based on Mallorcan writer Blai Bonet's El Mar.

Mo. Jackson was trained as a pianist and violinist before beginning his conducting career. He attended Amherst College and the Peabody Conservatory, and studied with conducting legends Otto Werner Mueller, Franco Ferrara and Sixten Ehrling. He speaks Italian, French, Spanish, German and Russian fluently, and is in demand worldwide not only as a conductor, but as a coach as well. Upcoming engagements include Simon Boccanegra at the Met, Der Freischütz with the Metropolitan Opera of Bangkok, the complete Life is a Dream of Lewis Spratlan with American Opera Projects, Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Opera Omaha, a new production in 2007 with the Istanbul Opera, and a major international concert for peace in South Korea.

Back To Top