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"Where words leave off, music begins." - Heinrich Heine

Christopher Jackson

Organist, harpsichordist, conductor, artistic director, teacher, mentor. Renaissance man. Christopher Jackson’s accomplishments are so numerous that it is difficult to choose a single word to describe him and the impact of his work. A pioneer of Montreal’s early music scene, Jackson was among the first to present period music to audiences in the early 1970s. He founded the world-renowned Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal in 1974 and immediately connected with music lovers in that city: one of his first concerts attracted more than 400 people, an astonishing feat considering the Canadian period music movement was in its infancy at that time. His reputation extended well beyond national borders – Jackson was invited to conduct several prestigious ensembles in France, Belgium and Spain, and led a tour of Monteverdi’s Orfeo across France in 1998. A leader in the academic word, Jackson was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University in 1994, a post he held until 2005. Ever the pioneer, Jackson was one of the key minds behind an unprecedented partnership between Concordia’s Engineering and Fine Arts Departments, resulting in the state-of-art Integrated Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Complex, which opened in Downtown Montreal in 2005. For all his entrepreneurial initiative in the academic world, Jackson never strayed far from his musical career, continuing to create unique and beautiful concert programmes and recordings with SMAM.