Richard Jackson was educated at King’s College Cambridge and the Guildhall School of Music. As a singer he became particularly known in the fields of art song and contemporary music.
He was a founder-member of Graham Johnson’s Songmakers’ Almanac, singing regularly with the group at the Wigmore Hall, the Festivals of Aldeburgh and Edinburgh – as well as in Europe, Hong Kong, and the USA; he took part in their recordings for BBCTV and on CD. As a singer of songs he also collaborated with Gerald Moore, Geoffrey Parsons, Richard Rodney Bennett, and Roger Vignoles.
In the field of contemporary opera Richard created a number of major roles in stage works by Wolfgang Rihm, Michael Finnissy, Gerald Barry, Peter Eötvös, Maurizio Kagel, and Pascal Dusapin – at London’s Almeida Festival, as well as in Amsterdam, Dublin, Warsaw, and Mexico City. Pierre Audi, David Fielding, and Benedict Andrews were among the directors he worked with.
Richard also appeared in more mainstream operas, ranging from Monteverdi to Strauss: at La Monnaie, ENO, Opera North, and Glyndebourne, with such directors as John Cox, Colin Graham, Tim Albery, Gian Carlo Menotti, and Glen Byam Shaw. He was the original Christus in Jonathan Miller’s celebrated staging of the St Matthew Passion. As a concert singer Richard worked with Sir John Eliot Gardiner, Sir Roger Norrington, Philippe Herreweghe, Sir Neville Marriner, Martin Brabbins, and Mstislav Rostropovich.
For the past fifteen years Richard has enjoyed a flourishing teaching career: making use of his specialist languages of French and German, he now leads classes at the RCM, GSMD, and Trinity Laban. He has taught in France, Norway, Beijing, New Zealand – and Australia, where he collaborated with Joan Sutherland in a series of classes. He has served on the jury for the Kathleen Ferrier Awards three times. He is delighted to return to Oxenfoord!
