Tess Jackson

Praised by The Arts Desk as having “everything it takes to succeed as conductor — engaging manner, clear gestures, centred authority”, Tess Jackson continues to affirm her place as one of her generation’s foremost conductors.

Recent and future highlights include three performances at the 2025 BBC Proms with the National Youth Orchestra with Holst’s The Planets, Britten Sinfonia with Gavin Higgins’ ‘Rough Voices’, and the Royal Northern Sinfonia at the Glasshouse, as well as debuts at the Berlin Philharmonie alongside Akademisten members, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, London Mozart Players, City of London Sinfonia, and her symphonic debut with the Philharmonia with Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4. Embarking on her second year as Emerging Conductor Fellow at Chromatica Orchestra, Jackson takes the podium to conduct the orchestra’s 2025 season opening concert with works by Bach, Grace Williams, Purcell, and Tippett, appearing with the orchestra on further occasions throughout the year. She also returns to the Royal Northern Sinfonia with programme of Prokofiev, Saint-Saëns, Ravel, and Poulenc.

In Spring 2026, Jackson conducts two performances of La Traviata at Garsington Opera, where she made an acclaimed jump-in for Smetana’s The Bartered Bride in 2023. She has also led The Marriage of Figaro at English National Opera, and Cabaret and West Side Story at Volksoper Vienna, where she was Musical Assistant in the 2023/24 season, as well as a production of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons in collaboration with dancers from Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance at Waterperry Opera Festival. Other opera work includes assisting Enrique Mazzola on Fidelio and Medea at Lyric Opera Chicago, and Trevor Pinnock in the Royal Academy Opera’s production of The Rake’s Progress.

Selected as an exceptional young artist at the 2025 BBC Proms and named as a Classic FM Rising Star in 2023, Jackson made her highly-praised BBC Proms debut in 2024 performing a new work by British composer Dani Howard specially commissioned to celebrate ten years of ‘NYO Inspire’, and jumped-in at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and Royal Festival Hall for Gavin Higgins’ Concerto Grosso for Brass Band and Orchestra.

Jackson grew up in Germany and studied Music at Cambridge University, latterly undertaking the Masters in Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music with Sian Edwards. Whilst studying at the Academy, Jackson worked with conductors Semyon Bychkov, Edward Gardner OBE, Sir Mark Elder, John Wilson, and Daniel Capps. She was the Cambridge University Musical Society Conducting Scholar and Principal Conductor of the Cambridge University Sinfonia 2019–21, the first woman to occupy the position for two consecutive years.

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