Gabriel Jackson was born in Bermuda in 1962. After three years as a chorister at Canterbury Cathedral he studied composition at the Royal College of Music, first in the Junior Department with Richard Blackford and later with John Lambert, gaining his B.Mus in 1983.
His music has been performed and broadcast throughout Europe and the USA and as far afield as Kuwait and Ho Chi Minh City. His works have been presented at many festivals including Belfast, Brighton, Cheltenham, Copenhagen, Glasgow Mayfest, Huddersfield, Kings Lynn, Machynlleth, Northern Lights (in Inverness), St. Magnus (in Orkney), Sounds New (in Canterbury), ThreeTwo (in New York), the Gegenwelten Festival (in Heidelberg) as well as Spitalfields and Meltdown in London. He has been commissioned by, among others, the East of England Orchestra, New Macnaghten Concerts, the Tate Gallery, and ensembles Tapestry, I Fagiolini, the Brindisi String Quartet, the Delta Saxophone Quartet and the Orlando Consort; more recently A Vision of Aeroplanes was premiered by the BBC Singers
His music is being recorded with increasing frequency and a CD of his chamber music on the Metronome label is being planned. Current projects include Atlantis, for symphony orchestra (Atlantis being the name of the re-useable space shuttle as well as Plato's lost city under the sea), a piano trio for Kammerspiel and a setting of Ian Hamilton Finlay for Paul Hillier's Theatre of Voices.