Jackson
'I try to write music that is clean and clear in line, texture and structure; my pieces are made of simple melodies, chords, drones and ostinatos. They are not about conflict and resolution; even when animated, they are essentially contemplative. I like repetition and 'ritualised' structures. Many of my pieces reflect an interest in Mediaeval techniques and ideas - I am particularly drawn to the ecstatic, panconsonant music of the early Tudor period.
I am religious by temperament, though not by belief, and several pieces are an attempt at a spiritual response to the great technological miracle of our time - powered flight.'
Gabriel Jackson was born in Bermuda in 1962. After three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral he studied composition at the Royal College of Music, first in the Junior Department with Richard Blackford and later with John Lambert, gaining his B.Mus in 1983. While at the College he was awarded the R.O.Morris Prize for Composition in 1981 and 1983 and in 1981 he also won the Theodore Holland Award. In 1992 he was awarded an Arts Council Bursary.
His music has been performed and broadcast throughout Europe and the USA and has also been heard, in recent years, in Cape Town, Ho Chi Minh City, Kiev, Kuwait, Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver. His works have been presented at many festivals in the UK and beyond, including Aldeburgh, Cheltenham, ThreeTwo (in New York), Lek Art 2000 & 2004 (in Culemborg), ppIANISSIMO (in Sofia), Haarlem Choir Biennale, Europa Cantat, Festival Vancouver, Festival ProBaltica, as well as Spitalfields and Meltdown in London. His liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of many of Britain's leading cathedral and collegiate choirs and in 2003 he won the liturgical category at the inaugural British Composer Awards.
His music is being recorded with increasing frequency with works available on NMC, Metier, Usk, GFR, Lammas, Priory, Telarc, York Ambisonic, the British Music Label. In 2005 Delphian Records released a disc devoted to his choral music and will release a Christmas CD including The Magi in December 2007. Recent instrumental commissions include Kenidjack, for alto saxophone, strings and percussion, works for guitarist Tom Kerstens, organist Michael Bonaventure, and Lunar Sax Quartet, for whom he wrote LM-7: Aquarius.
Latest projects include a string quartet for the Psophos Quartet commissioned by the Presteigne Festival, a large-scale solo piano work for David Wilde, and a choral commission for the Festival of St. Cecilia at Westminster Abbey, November 2007.
"...enfolded the audience with dignified, tragic power...(He) knows he has something to say, and he says it with directness and clarity." (The Times, June 1992)
"...you immediately wish to hear his music again...All of the disc is worth hearing, but I'd buy it just for the 15 minutes of Gabriel Jackson." (International Record Review, October 2002)
"...shows a total understanding of the human voice." (The Observer, May 2005)
Please contact the British Music Information Centre for details on all other works by Gabriel Jackson not published by Oxford University Press.
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