His father prescribed music lessons for therapy, which he began at age 4, showing immediate dedication and aptitude.
From age 14, he studied at Putney, a progressive, integrated and academically intense private boarding school near Brattleboro in Vermont.
[citation needed] Jackson studied Russian history and literature at Harvard University, from which he graduated cum laude in 1966.
While there, he had the opportunity to conduct Mozart’s opera Così fan tutte, which helped him decide to pursue music as a career.
He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Fontainebleau, France, before going to the Juilliard School in New York City, from which he graduated D.M.A.
He was appointed music director of the Flint Symphony Orchestra (Flint, Michigan) in 1982, the first black music director of the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra in 1987 (where he conducted Dayton's first-ever performance of Mahler's Symphony No.
8, Symphony of a Thousand[3]), and principal conductor of The Royal Ballet, Covent Garden, in 1986, and became its music director 1987-90.
He has also performed with the Dance Theatre of Harlem at the Spoleto Festival in Italy and at the Royal Opera House, London.
In 1973, at Leonard Bernstein’s suggestion, he was named as artistic director of the Vienna Youth Music Festival.
[5] He has been Visiting Professor of Conducting at the Hochschule der Künste, Berlin's premier conservatory.
He acknowledges he is an anglophile and he has conducted before members of Britain's royal family on several occasions.