Conductor J. David Jackson made his conducting debut in Brussels’ Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie with Don Pasquale, and has since won acclaim in Europe and America with his “first-rate conducting” (Boston Globe), “impressive command” (Opera News), “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).

Mo. Jackson made his Metropolitan Opera conducting debut with the new Richard Jones production of Hansel and Gretel during the 2007 – 2008 season. Other conducting credits at the Metropolitan Opera include Simon Boccanegra in the 2009 – 2010 season, starring Placido Domingo in the title role, Adrienne Pieczonka, Marcello Giordani and James Morris, and The Queen of Spades in the 2008 – 2009 season, with Maria Guleghina, Felicity Palmer and Ben Heppner.

Upcoming conducting engagements include his debut at the Teatro Regio di Torino during the 2011-2012 season and Janacek’s From The House of the Dead with the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon in December 2010. During the 2010 – 2011 season Mo. Jackson returns to the Met to assist with the new production of Boris Godunov as well as several revivals of Met favorites.

Recent seasons have also seen Mo. Jackson’s debut with War and Peace at the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto, Le Damnation de Faust at Genoa’s Teatro Carlo Felice, Weber’s Euryanthe at the Glyndebourne Festival, and Elektra at the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. He has conducted Il Barbiere di Siviglia with Opera Omaha, Le Jongleur de Notre Dame at the Central City Opera Festival, L’Italiana in Algeri at the Wolf Trap Festival, and Prima la musica, poi le parole/Der Schauspieldirektor at the Théâtre de la Place in Liège. Recently he has also conducted the Palm Beach Opera vocal competition, and concerts in Maribor, Slovenia with the Slovenian National Orchestra.

Mo. Jackson’s credits at the Metropolitan Opera as cover conductor include prestigious productions of Rodelinda, Il Barbiere di Siviglia, Die Fledermaus, Lucia di Lammermoor, La Traviata, Lohengrin, Idomeneo, Die Frau Ohne Schatten, Benvenuto Cellini, La Clemenza di Tito, Prokofiev’s The Gambler, Norma, Madama Butterfly, Il Trovatore, Orfeo ed Euridice, Rusalka, La Cenerentola, The House of the Dead, Tosca, Armida and The Nose.

As Music Director of the Opera Studio of La Monnaie, he conducted Così fan Tutte, Die Zauberflöte and The Love for Three Oranges on highly successful tours throughout Belgium and Germany. 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. As Music Director of the Intermezzo Opera Festival for three years, he was involved in casting, programming and budgeting decisions, and led the highly acclaimed European premiere of Mark Adamo’s Little Women in addition to productions of Cendrillon, Falstaff, Albert Herring, Dido and Aeneas and L’Enfant et les Sortilèges.

A versatile artist, Maestro Jackson’s enormous operatic repertory includes everything from early Baroque to contemporary. He is noted for his interpretation of French and Russian opera, with acclaimed successes of Massenet’s Le Jongleur de Notre Dame at the Central City Opera Festival, and Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, with La Monnaie. In 2005 he assisted at the Opéra National de Paris on Francesca Zambello’s production of Prokofiev’s War and Peace, and recently appeared in Toronto leading Prokofiev’s masterpiece. His conducting of Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades at the Met was also critically acclaimed. Since 1996, his new conclusion to Mussorgsky’s 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 as Music Director for American Opera Projects productions of Stefan Weisman’s Darkling and Deborah Dratell’s Marina. His performances of Act 2 of Lewis Spratlan’s Life is a Dream garnered the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2000. He will conduct world premiere performances of Kamran Ince’s The Judgment of Midas in Turkey in January 2011. He 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.

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 currently composing a new work entitled Model Love, 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. In addition to his native English he speaks Italian, French, Spanish, German and Russian, and is learning Czech.

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INTERMEZZO ARTISTS MANAGEMENT For more information contact Filippo Anselmi at 212-531-1514, filippo@intermezzofoundation.org                                                  Mitchell Piper at 860-255-7618, mitchell@intermezzofoundation.org