Biography
Jacobus de Jager is a South African conductor and the 2025/26 Mills Williams Junior Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music. He is also a Conducting Fellow on the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Conductors Programme with the Royal Northern Sinfonia. He completed his MMus in Conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland under Martyn Brabbins and Michael Bawtree, supported by the Leverhulme Trust, and was awarded the RCS Conducting Prize.
In the 2025/26 season, De Jager will conduct the Manchester Camerata, the RNCM Symphony Orchestra, and a range of RNCM ensembles, including a performance of Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges. He will also assist on projects with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra. As Junior Fellow, he is mentored by Mark Heron, Clark Rundell, and Nicolás Pasquet. De Jager is currently a semi-finalist in the Concours de Genève Conducting Competition, taking place in November 2026 with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ensemble Contrechamps, and the Orchestre de chambre de Genève.
De Jager has received international recognition through competition successes, including twice reaching the semi-finals of the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award in Salzburg and advancing to the semi-finals of the 2024 Korean National Symphony Orchestra International Conducting Competition. In 2021, he won the 5th South African Conductors’ Competition.
He has worked in various settings with a wide range of renowned ensembles, including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Orchestre National de Metz Grande Est, Orchestre de chambre de Genève, Hebrides Ensemble, Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Red Note Ensemble, Silesian Philharmonic, Athens Philharmonia Orchestra, and the Korean National Symphony Orchestra. In South Africa, he served as resident conductor of the Stellenbosch University Symphony Orchestra and has guest conducted major orchestras across the country, including the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, Free State Symphony Orchestra, Eastern Cape Philharmonic Orchestra, Johannesburg Festival Orchestra, and Cape Town Pops Orchestra.
His development has been further shaped by masterclasses with Marin Alsop, Paavo, Neeme and Kristjan Järvi, Thomas Søndergård, Johannes Schlaefli, David Reiland, John Wilson, Ryan Bancroft, Sian Edwards, Antony Hermus, Stuart Stratford, Michalis Economou, Leonid Grin, Victor Yampolsky, Daniel Raiskin, Rebecca Tong, Julien Benichou, and Alpesh Chauhan.
As an assistant conductor, De Jager has worked closely with numerous distinguished conductors and orchestras - most notably with Martyn Brabbins and the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the BBC Proms, and with the Malmö Symphony Orchestra in Sweden. He has also assisted Gemma New (BBC Philharmonic Orchestra), Andrew Manze (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra), Vassily Sinaisky, Catherine Larsen-Maguire, Michael Seal, Rebecca Tong, and Ellie Slorach. As part of his prize from the South African Conductors’ Competition, he spent five weeks studying with and assisting Arjan Tien in the Netherlands.
Dedicated to contemporary music and South African storytelling, De Jager has conducted several world premieres, including Kathleen Tagg’s Please Dream: In his words, a tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mikhaila Smith’s Lighting Our Stories: Tapestries of the Invisible, commemorating singer and activist Tina Schouw. He received the 2022 Toyota US Woordfees Award for Best Upcoming Artist and was nominated for the KykNet Fiësta Awards in both 2023 and 2024.
De Jager holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in piano performance (cum laude) from the University of Stellenbosch, where he studied under Nina Schumann and Luis Magalhães. His earlier conducting mentors include Corvin Matei and Daniel Boico in South Africa, as well as Alexander Polishchuk in St. Petersburg.
