artistic biography

please contact Jack for an up-to-date biography or non-English text

solo performance, improvisation

Jack continually seeks to introduce the tuba to the wider compositional world. His work with living composers from young students through to luminaries such as Georges Aperghis, Michael Finnissy, and Mark Andre has resulted in at least fifty new works for solo tuba (or duo with another instrument), many of which have been published in the Contemporary Music for Tuba series which he curates for Edition Gravis. He has also championed neglected solo works from great twentieth-century composers such as Vinko Globokar, Mauricio Kagel, Luigi Nono, Elliott Carter, Franco Donatoni, Giacinto Scelsi, Karlheinz Stockhausen, and Sofia Gubaidulina, as well as producing the first publically-available recordings of six modernist works for solo tuba composed in the 1960s and 70s. Awards for his performances have included being a finalist or prize winner in the Wind Section of the Royal Over-Seas League Music Competition, the Bromsgrove International Musicians Competition, the Jeju International Wind and Percussion Competition, and the Goronwy Jones Memorial Prize. His commissions have been financially supported by, amongst others, Intiative Neue Musik Berlin, Deutsche Musikrat, Musikfonds, Berliner Senat, the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council of Great Britain.

Jack’s work as an improviser includes being a founding member of the Reanimation Orchestra, a co-composing, interpreting and improvising ensemble. He has also performed extensively as a solo improviser and in ensembles with musicians including Axel Dörner, Lorena Izquierdo Aparicio, Andrew Levine, CLiC live coders, and Stefan Prins, working primarily in Berlin, but also performing in Spain, Argentina, and Switzerland.

As a teacher he has worked with students from beginner to Master level across the whole lower brass family, alongside offering music theory/harmony and counterpoint tuition, and working as repetiteur/coach for numerous professional vocalists. He is a tutor at the Lucerne Festival Academy as one of festival’s Contemporary Leaders, and has given masterclasses, lessons, seminars, and workshops for instrumentalists and composers at institutions across the world. As a critic, his writings have been published in the journals Music and Letters and TEMPO on topics including concerts at the Donaueschinger Musiktage and Lucerne Festival, as well as a review of the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Brass Instruments.

ensemble, theatrical, and orchestral performance

Jack’s experience as an ensemble musician includes regular guest performances with new music ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Kammerensemble Neue Musik Berlin, and Ensemble Modern, involving collaborations with composers including Olga Neuwirth, Enno Poppe, Isabel Mundry, Helmut Lachenmann, and Rebecca Saunders, amongst countless others. His work with symphony and opera orchestras includes contracts, trial periods, and guest performances with organisations across Europe including the Aalborg Sinfoniorkester, BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Brussels Philharmonic, Hallé Orchestra, WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, Hamburger Symphoniker, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, and Niedersäschsiches Staatsorchester Hannover, working with conductors such as Sir Donald Runnicles, Ilan Volkov, Jukka-Pekka Saraste, Sir Simon Rattle, and Sir Mark Elder. Jack also has extensive experience as a performer on stage in theatrical productions as both an instrumentalist and a conductor.

In addition to all forms of modern tuba (F, E-flat, C, and B-flat), he also performs on euphonium, trombone (alto, tenor, bass, and contrabass), as well as historical tubas and predecessors to the tuba (serpent, ophicleide, and other bass horns) that have stimulated several of his active research areas. He has also performed on sousaphone with bands spanning across jazz, rock, dub-step genres at festivals across the UK and Germany.

composition and arrangement

Jack's compositions include Edges of Consciousness for solo tuba (commissioned by David Wishart), Divertimento for tuba ensemble (commissioned by Jens Bjørn-Larsen), and Engführung, Reflexionen nach Texten von Paul Celan for tuba and harp (commissioned by Hans Nickle and the WDR Sinfonieorchester Köln, and premiered at the WDR Funkhaus in Cologne), while his arrangements range from solo and duo works by Telemann, Rachmaninoff, Vivaldi and Lakmé, to ensemble works by John Williams, Michael Kamen and Jacob Gade. He has also worked as engraver of the music of Roger Steptoe for Editions BIM (Switzerland). Many of his compositions and arrangements for tuba(s) are published by Potenza Music or by contacting Jack directly.

conducting, administration, and other activities

Jack has worked as a conductor and/or musical director for many productions, including theatrical performances at the Luzerner Theater and Deutsche Oper Berlin, at the 35th Cantiere Internazionale d’Arte di Montepulciano, and as director of the Manchester University Wind Orchestra.

He has worked for the administration for the Lucerne Festival since 2015, and is a founding member of the Lucerne Festival Contemporary Leaders, including coordination of the curation of the annual Forward Festival since 2022. He was also co-founder, curator, and manager of Active Listening, including a concert series in 2019, and a streaming festival in 2021.

As a singer, Jack’s experiences have ranged from staged productions of Otello (Verdi) Carmen (Bizet) with Glyndbourne Opera House to lay clerk activities at churches and cathedrals in Manchester, Salford, and Warrington. He has also performed as a chorister in broadcasts on BBC Radio 3, 4, and the World Service as part of the Manchester Chamber Choir, with the Manchester Camerata under Nicholas Kramer, BBC Philharmonic under HK Gruber, and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra under Andris Nelsons.