The conductor and counter-tenor, Kerry Jago, was born in England and raised in New Zealand (Howick, Auckland). There he studied at the University of Wellington composition and history. As assistant to Marc Taddei, he conducted concerts of the local university orchestra and attended workshops with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and Auckland Philharmonia. At the Gisborne Festival Opera he conducted the opera Carmen. He is a graduate of Victoria University. He was the recipient of a Creative New Zealand grant in 2002, to help fund his studies of orchestral conducting in Germany. Since October 2001 he studied at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hannover under Eiji Oue, the musical director of the North German Radio Philharmonic.
In July 2003, Kerry Jago became the conductor of the Jungen Marburger Philharmonie (JMP) of Lorenz Nordmeyer and in October 2003, the conductor of the Jungen Sinfonieorchesters Hannover with Tobias Rokahr. With the two orchestras he has conducted so far to the symphonies of L.v. Beethoven, Dvorak, Felix Mendelssohn, W.A. Mozart, Schubert and Sibelius, concertos by Dvorak, Sibelius, Frédéric Chopin, L.v. Beethoven, W.A. Mozart, Johannes Brahms and Tchaikovsky, among others, with soloists from the Netherlands Symphony Orchestra.
Kerry Jago appeared as a guest conductor in February 2005 with the Studenten-Sinfonie-Orchester Marburg, and in December 2005 with the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra (Zealand). In 2005 he became the second recipient of a Kiri Te Kanawa Foundation grant, which would allow him to return to conduct the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra at its Christmas Proms concert in December 2005. In 2005 he was also involved in a series of open-air concerts with the Junge Marburger Philharmonic in Germany. Kerry Jago left the direction of JMP in summer 2006; Kiril Stankov was elected as his successor. |