Sean Jackson (organist)
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Sean Jackson (born February 25, 1973 in Bridgetown, Barbados) is an organist and pianist. Jackson is a Doctoral graduate of the Juilliard School, New York, where he also received his Master of Music degree in 1999.
A native of Barbados, Jackson left his homeland in 1992 to study for a Bachelor of Music degree at the Royal College of Music, London. Since then he has performed in other West Indian islands, the United Kingdom, Northern Ireland, Germany, Taiwan, Canada, and the United States of America.
Jackson began his musical studies at the age of five and by the age of eleven had won his first gold medal in his country's National Independence Festival of Creative Arts. In recognition of his outstanding contribution he was subsequently awarded the National Youth Award from the Barbados government, and went on to receive numerous prizes and awards both at the undergraduate and graduate level including the Parratt, Walford Davies, and Geoffrey Tankard organ prizes, the Douglas Whittaker Chamber Music Prize (all from the Royal College of Music) and the A.H. Kuhn Memorial Scholarship, the 1999 William Schumann Prize, and the C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellowship from the Juilliard School.
In October 2000, while still a student, Jackson won an organ competition at the Juilliard School which entitled him to perform Stephen Paulus's Organ Concerto with the Juilliard Symphony at the Alice Tully Hall and was featured again with the Juilliard Symphony at the Lincoln Center in November 2003 with a performance of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony. Other notable appearances include a performance as guest organist with the New York Youth Symphony in Carnegie Hall, appearance as a featured artist in the International Concert Series at Trinity, Wall Street, and a solo performance at The Washington National Cathedral, 2006. Highlights of his 2007 upcoming performances include a debut performance at the Kimmel Center, Philadelphia and a performance at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in June.
Jackson spent six years as Assistant Organist at Trinity Church, New York, where he recorded with the Trinity Choir on the Naxos label. In August, 2004 he assumed duties as Director of Music at the St. John's Episcopal Church, Stamford, Connecticut where he recorded and launched his debut CD, Sean Jackson Plays Organ Favorites: Volume I. His tutors included Nicholas Danby, Gerre Hancock and John Weaver (organ), and Peter Katin and Jacob Lateiner (piano).
