Jenny Jackson is strongly influenced by a long-term interest in the visual and dramatic arts. Her colourful compositions often incorporate elements of theatricality, exposing or exaggerating the physical effort required in performance, or challenging audience perception and expectation in what they see or hear. 

Jenny is currently working on a collaborative project with George Kokkinaris (double bass) and Orestis Tsekouras (guitar) for multiple performances in Athens (dates tbc).


Recent performances include Passages; a wind quintet written for the Azalea Quintet with performances in Manchester and Sheffield in 2023; Music for the Arts Tower - a collaborative project with Platform 4 and Lorenzo Prati to produce a multidisciplinary site specific performance at the University of Sheffield Arts Tower, as part of the Classical Sheffield Weekend 23Nugs for cor anglais, contrabass recorder & double bass (2021) was selected as the winner of the XelmYa call for scores & miniatures & projects 2021 and was performed by them at the Kulturhaus Centre Bagatelle, Berlin, Germany (December 2022); Mindstreams for alto flute, viola and harp, performed by musicians at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire (February 2022); Pacemaker for solo piano, performed by Ian Pace (December 2021, York Unitarian Chapel - Late Music commission); Limb for solo viola and orchestra (2019), performed by Hallam Sinfonia with violist Maria Do Vale Antunes (funded by the British Viola Society and Hallam Sinfonia); and Mimesis for piano, percussion and midi drum pad (2017) performed by the Passepartout Duo. Expel - a single breath piece for solo flute - was commissioned and recorded by Kathryn Williams for her Coming Up For Air album, released by Huddersfield Contemporary Records in November 2019. 


Jenny completed a PhD in composition at the University of Sheffield in 2009 supervised by Professor George Nicholson, and went on to form Platform 4 - a composer collective - with Tom Owen, Chris Noble and Tom James. The strength of the collective approach has enabled bold and adventurous projects such as Embodiments – four pieces of fully-staged dance/music-theatre, with dancer Hannah Wadsworth and soprano Andrea Tweedale in 2017.  


Jenny teaches piano, composition and theory classes in Sheffield, and she is an ABRSM Theory examiner. She directs the Sheffield Viola Ensemble, and runs workshops and sessions for adult beginner string players in Sheffield: First Position Strings (adult beginners string ensemble), Beginner's Viola Group, and First Position ViolinsJenny has six pieces published by Tetractys Publishing (an independent UK publisher, specialising in new compositions and arrangements for low flutes).