BIOGRAPHY

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. His work spans the symphonic repertoire, opera and contemporary music, and he builds concerts so that someone coming for the first time can find their way in.

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He is a semi-finalist in the Concours de Genève Conducting Competition, which concludes in November with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Ensemble Contrechamps and the Orchestre de chambre de Genève. In June he was one of the final seven conductors in the Mahler Competition in Bamberg, where he conducted the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra, and in April he was a finalist in the BSO Calleva Conducting Competition with the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. He has twice been a semi-finalist in the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award in Salzburg, and in 2022 he won the 5th South African Conductors’ Competition.

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He was a Conducting Fellow of the 2026 Lucerne Festival, where he conducted three concerts — two Academy programmes and the Composers’ Seminar concert, presented by Dieter Ammann and Unsuk Chin — working with Jörg Widmann, Baldur Brönnimann and Peter Rundel. At the Fiskars Summer Festival he was invited by Jukka-Pekka Saraste to share the podium with him for the closing concert, which De Jager opened.

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He has conducted the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, The Hallé, Manchester Camerata, Orchestre national de Metz Grand Est, Orchestre de chambre de Genève, Südwestdeutsche Philharmonie Konstanz and the Korean National Symphony Orchestra, and has assisted at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic and the BBC Philharmonic. In opera he conducted the final performance of the RNCM’s The Love for Three Oranges and the cover cast of the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland’s Die Zauberflöte.

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He has given a number of world premieres, among them Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson’s Endangered Dreams and Caio Azevedo’s drowning toward an inflatable sun at the 2026 Lucerne Festival, Matthijs van Dijk’s A Pulse Before Dawn with the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival Alumni Orchestra, and Kathleen Tagg’s Please Dream: In his words, written in tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He is interested in how a new score reaches an audience — in programming and pacing a concert so that unfamiliar music arrives on its own terms, and in speaking to audiences from the platform.

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He returns to South Africa to work each year, most often with the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, and was resident conductor of the Stellenbosch University Symphony Orchestra. He has been part of the Stellenbosch International Chamber Music Festival for many years and conducted its Alumni Orchestra in 2025. He received the Toyota Stellenbosch Woordfees award for Best Upcoming Artist in 2022.

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De Jager began as a pianist, receiving his BMus and an MMus in performance at Stellenbosch University, both cum laude, and studying conducting with Daniel Boico in Cape Town and Alexander Polishchuk in St Petersburg. He completed his MMus in Conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland under Martyn Brabbins, graduating with distinction and the RCS Conducting  He has taken masterclasses with Daniele Gatti, Marin Alsop, Paavo, Neeme and Kristjan Järvi, Thomas Søndergård, Johannes Schlaefli, Sian Edwards, Ludovic Morlot, Antony Hermus, Nicolás Pasquet, David Reiland, Ryan Bancroft, Christoph Altstaedt, Alpesh Chauhan and Michalis Economou.Prize.