Tess Jackson

Fresh from being named joint winner of the 2026 Menuhin Conducting Prize, British conductor Tess Jackson begins the 2026/27 season with a series of major orchestral and operatic engagements. She makes debuts with the Hallé and Scottish Chamber Orchestra, returns to the Philharmonia Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and makes important operatic debuts at Lyric Opera of Chicago and Glyndebourne Festival. 

Jackson was awarded the Menuhin Conducting Prize at the Menuhin Festival Gstaad following an intensive Conducting Academy working with Jaap van Zweden, Alexander Shelley and Johannes Schlaefli. The award brings future engagements with some of the Festival’s partner orchestras, alongside further artistic development and mentoring. 

A growing network of orchestral relationships is central to Jackson’s work. Her association with the Philharmonia Orchestra began at Garsington Opera, where an acclaimed last -minute jump -in while assisting Jac van Steen on Smetana’s The Bartered Bride led directly to her symphonic debut with the orchestra, conducting Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason and Tchaikovsky’s Symphony No. 4 . She returned to the Philharmonia for Verdi’s La Traviata at Garsington in summer 2026 and reunites with the orchestra and Bold Tendencies for Mozart’s Great Mass in C minor this season. 

Elsewhere in 2026/27, Jackson makes her Hallé debut in a programme culminating in Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, conducts the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, and returns to the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland. 

Opera is an increasingly important strand of Jackson’s career. Following La Traviata at Garsington , she makes her mainstage debut at Lyric Opera of Chicago conducting four performances of the same opera in spring 2027, before making her Glyndebourne Festival debut with Rossini’s La Cenerentola . Previous engagements include Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro at English National Opera and West Side Story and Cabaret at Volksoper Wien, while her relationship with Lyric Opera of Chicago developed through her work alongside Music Director Enrique Mazzola. 

Jackson’s profile grew significantly through her appearances at the BBC Proms. In 2025 she conducted three Proms in a single season, with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Britten Sinfonia and Royal Northern Sinfonia, and in 2026 made her BBC Concert Orchestra debut at the festival, leading newly commissioned works as part of the BBC Young Composer celebrations. She was named by the BBC among ten “exceptional” artists under 30 and one of the festival’s brightest rising stars on the international stage. From 2023 to 2025 she was Associate Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra, and further orchestral engagements have included the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, City of London Sinfonia, London Mozart Players, Ulster Orchestra and Kammerorchester Basel. 

Jackson grew up in Germany and speaks fluent German. She studied Music at Cambridge University, graduating with First Class Honours, before completing a Master’s in Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, where she received the Conducting and Regency Award for outstanding achievement. She was named a Classic FM Rising Star in 2023 and received Garsington Opera’s Leonard Ingrams Award in 2025.

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