Jacobus de Jager

Jacobus de Jager is a South African conductor and pianist, and the 2025/26 recipient of the Mills Williams Junior Fellowship in Conducting at the Royal Northern College of Music. He is currently completing his MMus in Conducting at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland under the guidance of Martyn Brabbins and Michael Bawtree, generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust. De Jager has garnered international recognition through his achievements, including reaching the semi-finals of the 2024 Korean National Symphony Orchestra International Conducting Competition and being a two-time semifinalist in the Herbert von Karajan Young Conductors Award in Salzburg. In 2021, he won the 5th South African Conductors’ Competition.

He has worked in various settings with renowned ensembles, including the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Mozarteumorchester Salzburg, Orchestra of Scottish Opera, Hebrides Ensemble, Österreichisches Ensemble für Neue Musik, Silesian Philharmonic, and the Korean National Symphony Orchestra. In South Africa, he served as resident conductor of the Stellenbosch University Symphony Orchestra and has guest conducted prominent orchestras such as the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, Mzansi National Philharmonic Orchestra, and Free State Symphony Orchestra, among others.

As an assistant conductor, De Jager has collaborated with many 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. His training has been further enriched through masterclasses with eminent conductors including Marin Alsop, Paavo and Neeme Järvi, Kristjan Järvi, Thomas Søndergård, John Wilson, Ryan Bancroft, Sian Edwards, Antony Hermus, Stuart Stratford, Michalis Economou, and Arjan Tien.

Dedicated to contemporary music, De Jager has conducted numerous premieres, including Kathleen Tagg’s Please Dream: In his words, a tribute to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Mikhaila Smith’s Lighting Our Stories, commemorating the singer and activist Tina Schouw. A laureate of several South African cultural awards, De Jager received the 2022 Woordfees Award for Best Upcoming Artist, and was nominated for KykNet Fiësta Awards in both 2023 and 2024. He holds both 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 previous conducting teachers include Corvin Matei and Daniel Boico in South Africa, as well as Alexander Polishchuk in St. Petersburg.