"There is no truer truth obtainable by man than that which comes of music."
Robert Browning

John Jansson is a versatile conductor, composer and pianist, bringing flair and commitment to each role he undertakes. Trained at the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music, he has worked extensively in the theatre, but is equally at home directing orchestral music and opera in repertoire from the 18th to the 21st centuries. He is an experienced arranger and editor of music, and can step outside the classical idiom with panache, having been brought up in a home where both parents were jazz musicians.

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"I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas.
I'm frightened of the old ones"
John Cage

His commitment to contemporary classical music appeared early his career when he formed the Blue Rider Ensemble while still a student, giving several premieres including works by Walton, MacMillan, Tavener and Takemitsu. At the Royal Opera House’s Linbury Studio he conducted the London premiere of John Adams’s I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky (also at the Huddersfield Festival of Contemporary Music), and he was the conductor for Bernstein’s Trouble in Tahiti and Barber’s A Hand of Bridge (Southwark Theatre) and Marc Blitzstein’s The Cradle Will Rock (Battersea Arts Centre). He also worked with composer Dominic Muldowney and the BBC Symphony Orchestra on the premiere of Three Pieces for Orchestra, devising the electronic cueing system for this work. With the Opera24 company, of which he is the artistic director, he conducted Così fan Tutte for the 2013 Grimeborn festival, as well as its 2014 revival. Forthcoming opera engagements include La Bohème, Il Nozze di Figaro, Wozzeck and the world première of Marc Blitzstein’s No For An Answer.

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"Don’t play what’s there,
play what’s not there"
Miles Davis

He is the artistic director of the London Jazz Sinfonia, a virtuoso ensemble of the finest jazz and classical musicians currently working in the UK. He has worked with Cleo Laine, Guy Barker, Stacey Kent, Jacqui Dankworth, Henry Lowther and the late John Dankworth. He has arranged for Digby Fairweather, Alan Barnes, and Julian Marc Stringle's Dream Band. He worked many times with the late Tina May and some of these arrangements featured on her highly acclaimed album My Kinda Love. He is currently writing arrangements for a new album with Julian Marc Stringle, and has been working with Jacqui Dankworth on Twelve o'Clock Tales, a show dedicated to the work of Billy Strayhorn.

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"I think there is no world without theatre"
Edward Bond

His theatrical credits include conducting several productions at the Royal National Theatre, among them Sondheim’s Sunday in the Park with George (Olivier Award), Brecht’s The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui (with Antony Sher) and Deborah Warner's production of The Good Person of Sichuan. He also worked with the late Mel Smith on The Gambler (Jermyn Street Theatre). He composed the score for the Perrier award winning adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's Innocent Erendira at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, which then transferred to the Donmar Warehouse. Other theatrical composer credits include critically acclaimed scores for the York Cycle of Mystery Plays, and numerous productions in London and throughout the country. His musical Sharp Focus was performed at London's King’s Head, and he has written for community projects in Banbury, Kilburn and Bridlington. He also collaborated with Stephen Sondheim in devising a presentation of Sondheim's unpublished songs at the National’s Lyttelton Theatre.

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"Ohne Musik wäre das Leben ein Irrtum"
Friedrich Nietzsche

He and his music have appeared many times on radio, most recently on BBC Radio 3's "In Tune", and his TV appearances include The Late Show and Omnibus. John Jansson’s credits also include three CDs: The Isles of Greece, an orchestral song cycle arranged from the serious songs of Donald Swann, a disc of Hoagy Carmichael songs (arrangements for Digby Fairweather) and Tina May's album My Kinda Love. He has also edited a number of collections of Donald Swann's songs for Lengnick and Thames, he edited the piano works of Marc Blitzstein as well as preparing a performing version of Blitzstein's No for an Answer for its European premiere at the Grimeborn Festival in 2023. His educational work have included lecturing and performing posts at Goldsmith’s College, London University.

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