BIOGRAPHY
JACOBUS DE JAGER · CONDUCTOR
South African conductor Jacobus de Jager is the Mills Williams Junior Fellow in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music and a Royal Philharmonic Society Conductor for 2026–28, in partnership with the Royal Northern Sinfonia.
Jacobus has received international recognition through a series of major competition and programme selections. In 2026, he reached the semi-final round of the Mahler Competition in Bamberg, as one of seven conductors selected to conduct the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra. He was one of four conductors selected for the 2026 Lucerne Festival Contemporary-Conducting Programme, where he conducted in three concerts with the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Orchestra, including the Composers’ Seminar concert presented by Dieter Ammann and Unsuk Chin, and worked with Jörg Widmann, Baldur Brönnimann and Peter Rundel. At the 2026 Fiskars Summer Festival he was invited by Jukka-Pekka Saraste to share the podium with him for the closing concert, which he opened. He is currently a semi-finalist in the Concours de Genève Conducting Competition, taking place in November with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ensemble Contrechamps and the Orchestre de chambre de Genève. He has twice been a semi-finalist in the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award in Salzburg, and in 2022 won the 5th South African Conductors’ Competition.
His conducting experience includes concert performances, opera, competitions and festival and academy programmes, with orchestras and ensembles including the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, The Hallé, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Northern Sinfonia, Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est, Orchestre de chambre de Genève, Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz, Korean National Symphony Orchestra, Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik and the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. His most recent operatic production was Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges at the RNCM, where he conducted the final performance.
His artistic development has been shaped by work with conductors including Daniele Gatti, Marin Alsop, Paavo, Neeme and Kristjan Järvi, Thomas Søndergård, Johannes Schlaefli, David Reiland, John Wilson, Ryan Bancroft, Sian Edwards, Antony Hermus, Stuart Stratford, Ludovic Morlot, Nicolás Pasquet, Michalis Economou, Alpesh Chauhan and Christoph Altstaedt, among others.
As an assistant conductor, he has worked with Vasily Petrenko, John Storgårds, Domingo Hindoyan, Antony Hermus, Andris Poga, Gemma New, Andrew Manze, Martyn Brabbins and Adam Hickox, with orchestras including the BBC Philharmonic and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra.
He has a particular commitment to new music and to the work of South African composers. His performances have included world premieres by Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson, Caio Azevedo, Matthijs van Dijk and Kathleen Tagg, among others. At the 2026 Lucerne Festival he conducted the world premiere of Nelson’s Endangered Dreams, while his work in South Africa has included premieres and projects with the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival and its Alumni Orchestra. He continues to return regularly to South Africa to work with orchestras including the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and was previously Resident Conductor of the Stellenbosch University Symphony Orchestra. In 2022 he received the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees Award for Best Upcoming Artist.
He began his musical training as a pianist, receiving BMus and MMus degrees in Piano Performance from Stellenbosch University, both cum laude, where he studied with Nina Schumann and Luis Magalhães. He later studied conducting privately with Daniel Boico in Cape Town and Alexander Polishchuk in St Petersburg, before completing his MMus in Conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland under Martyn Brabbins, graduating with distinction and receiving the RCS Conducting Prize.
