Gabriel Jackson was born in Bermuda in 1962. After three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral he studied composition at the Royal College of Music, first in the Junior Department with Richard Blackford and later with John Lambert, gaining his B.Mus in 1983. While at the College he was awarded the R.O.Morris Prize for Composition in 1981 and 1983 and in 1981 he also won the Theodore Holland Award. In 1992 he was awarded an Arts Council Bursary.
His music has been performed and broadcast throughout Europe and the USA and has also been heard, in recent years, in Cape Town, Ho Chi Minh City, Kiev, Kuwait, Sydney, Tokyo and Vancouver. His works have been presented at many festivals including Aldeburgh, Bath, Belfast, Brighton, Buxton, Canterbury, Cheltenham, Copenhagen, Glasgow Mayfest, Huddersfield, Kings Lynn, Lichfield, Little Missenden, Machynlleth, Newbury, Northern Lights, Oxford Contemporary Music, Oxford Literary Festival, St Magnus, Stour Summer Music, Vale of Glamorgan, Warwick and Leamington, Sounds New (in Canterbury), ThreeTwo (in New York), Lek Art 2000 & 2004 (in Culemborg), ppIANISSIMO (in Sofia), Haarlem Choir Biennale, Gaude Mater, Europa Cantat, Graz Orfeo Festival, Grahamstown New Music Indaba, Regensburg Tage Alter und Neuer Musik, Festival Vancouver, Sidney Spring Festival, Heidelberg Gegenwelten, Festival ProBaltica, as well as Spitalfields and Meltdown in London. He has been commissioned and performed by, among others, the BBC, the East of England Orchestra, COMA, New Macnaghten Concerts, the Tate Gallery, Birmingham Symphony Hall, the National Centre for Early Music and ensembles Tapestry, CHROMA, I Fagiolini, the Brindisi String Quartet, the Chamber Choir of Europe, Opus Anglicanum, the Delta Saxophone Quartet, Chapelle du Roi, the Orlando Consort, the BBC Singers, EXAUDI Vocal Ensemble, Lontano, the Exon Singers, the Lunar Saxophone Quartet, Ensemble de la Rue, the Netherlands Chamber Choir, the Riga Piano Duo, the MDR Radio Choir, the Danish Saxophone Quartet, Berlin RIAS Kammerchor, the Composers Ensemble, the Renaissance Singers, Ensemble Corund, O K E A N O S, the MDR Rundfunkchoir Leipzig, the Riga Saxophone Quartet, Ex Cathedra, Ars Nova Copenhagen, the State Choir "Latvija", the Tallis Scholars, the Norwegian Soloists Ensemble, the Veya Saxophone Quartet, Laudibus, the Lyric Quartet, The Sixteen, Cappella Nova, the Flemish Radio Choir, the Psophos Quartet, the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus, the National Youth Choir of Great Britain, Musica Intima, the Swedish Radio Choir, Chameleon, Voces Sacrae, The Clerks' Group, Jauna Muzika of Vilnius, Quartet SaxEst, the Stockholm Bach Choir and the Chamber Group of Scotland.
In 1989 his Black and White Trio, based on a triptych by the leading conceptual landscape artist Richard Long, was premiered at Tate Britain (with a video projection by Robert Lemkin), followed in 1991 by Rhapsody in Red, and in 2003 by In The Mendips, also based on works by Long. This close involvement with the visual arts has also produced a trilogy (Eurydice, String Quartet No.2: Ring of Waves and Clarinet Quintet: In Prairial and Thermidor (1994-96)) derived from three works (in three different media) by the distinguished Scottish artist Ian Hamilton Finlay and in 1998 he curated a series of concerts at Tate Britain which included the first performance of The Coral Sea, which takes its title from a photograph by the late Robert Mapplethorpe. In 2004 O K E A N O S gave the first performance of A Piece of Sky (after Yoko Ono), his third commission from the group after Lunar 21 in the Sea of Serenity and The Butterfly Corona (both written in 2003).
Particularly acclaimed for his choral works, his liturgical pieces are in the repertoires of many of Britain's leading cathedral and collegiate choirs and in 2003 he won the liturgical category at the inaugural British Composer Awards. His music is being recorded with increasing frequency with over thirty works available (several in multiple recordings) on Avie, Lammas, Metier, NMC, Priory, Regent, Signum, Telarc and Usk, and in 2005 a disc devoted to his choral music was released to great acclaim by Delphian Records. Recent works include a 40-part motet, Sanctum est verum lumen, commissioned by the Lichfield Festival for the Tallis Quincentenary in 2005, LM-7: Aquarius for the Lunar Saxophone Quartet, Orbis patrator optime for the Choir of New College, Oxford, Fantasy with chorale (and bells) for guitarist Tom Kerstens, Aeterna caeli gloria for the 2007 Festival of St Cecilia at Westminster Abbey, Angeli, archangeli (a collaboration with young poet Colin Tan) for the choir of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, a Piano Sonata for David Wilde, The Spacious Firmament for choir, brass and organ which was commissioned by the John Armitage Memorial Trust, an a capella Requiem for the Vasari Singers, and Ave, Regina caelorum for electric guitar and choir commissioned by Tom Kerstens and The Sixteen for the opening of Kings Place in London. Current projects include a Piano Concerto for the Presteigne Festival and choral works for the choirs of Merton College, Oxford, Wells Cathedral and St John's College, Cambridge.
His music is published by Oxford University Press and by the British Music Information Centre.
