James Jacobson
Percussion/Timpani
James Jacobson is Associate Principal Timpanist/Percussionist this season, while on leave as Principal Timpanist of the Richmond Symphony Orchestra in Virginia. During summers, he is timpanist of the AIMS Festival Orchestra in Graz, Austria. As an orchestral musician he has been Principal Timpanist of the Delaware Symphony, Principal Percussionist of the Tallahassee Symphony, and has performed with the Minnesota, Jacksonville, Toledo, Columbus, Virginia, Key West, and Stamford Symphonies, in addition to the Bolshoi and Joffrey Ballet Orchestras, and the Bergen Philharmonic in Norway.
Mr. Jacobson has appeared as soloist with the Richmond Symphony on two occasions, performing the Druchetzky Partita in C and the David Schiff timpani concerto Speaking in Drums. He also premiered the opera Ligeia at the Evian Music Festival in Evian, France under Mstislav Rostropovich, attended the Aspen and Chautauqua music festivals for several years, and was a guest recitalist at the International Percussion Conference in Espinho, Portugal. In 2007 and 08, James was a guest recitalist, led timpani masterclasses, and taught at the Patagonia Percussion Festival in Argentina, where he conducted his arrangement of Frank Zappa’s Peaches en Regalia for percussion ensemble.
In the commercial music world, Jim has performed with David Byrne, Bob Berg, and spent several years in Los Angeles producing pop music and performing in the punk-rock band Big Fun.
Jim holds degrees from the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota, and a doctorate from the Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University. In addition, he
has studied privately with Leigh Howard Stevens in New York, Keiko Abe in Tokyo, and Wieland Welzel, solo timpanist of the Berlin Philharmonic, in Germany.
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