Dr Simon Jackson is Director of Music at Peterhouse and a Bye-Fellow of the College, a College Teaching Associate in English at Peterhouse, and Director of Studies in English at Hughes Hall. Before taking up his role at Peterhouse, he served as Organist and Director of Music at the neighbouring Church of Little St Mary’s. Simon is a former member of the choirs of York Minster, Peterborough Cathedral and Jesus College, Cambridge, and in addition to his musical activities, he leads an active academic career. He is a former Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Warwick, and his research examines the relationship between poetry and music in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. His doctoral thesis, exploring the literary and musical activities of the poet-priest George Herbert, won the George Herbert Society Chauncey Wood Prize, and his article on George Herbert and English masque culture article won the English Literary Renaissance award in 2015. His first book, George Herbert and Early Modern Musical Culture was published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.

He is always delighted to hear from anyone interested in joining the Chapel Choir, becoming involved in Peterhouse Music Society, or participating in music-making within the college more widely: please email him.

Selected Publications

Book

George Herbert and Early Modern Musical Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2022).

Articles and Chapters

'Attending to Sound in Early Modern Literature' in Annette Kern-Stähler and Elizabeth Robertson, eds., Literature and the Senses. Oxford Twenty-First Century Approaches to Literature (Oxford University Press, 2023).

'Becoming "a Citizen of the World": Edward Herbert and continental music-making', in Greg Miller and Anne-Marie Miller-Blaise, eds., Edward and George Herbert in the European Republic of Letters (Manchester University Press, 2022).

‘Prayer and Musical Performance: The Verse Anthem’ in Joseph Sterrett, ed., Prayer and Performance (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Clarke, Elizabeth and Simon Jackson, ‘Lyric Poetry’, in The Oxford Handbook of Early Modern Literature and Religion, ed. by Andrew Hiscock and Helen Wilcox (Oxford University Press, 2017).

‘The Visual Music of the Masque, and George Herbert’s Temple’, English Literary Renaissance 45:3 (Autumn 2015), 375-99.

 ‘“Lord, how can man preach thy eternall word?”: Preaching and the Metaphysical Lyric’, in Preaching and the Theological Imagination, ed. by Zachary Guiliano and Cameron Partridge, Studies in Episcopal and Anglican Theology volume 9 (New York & Berlin: Peter Lang, 2015).

 ‘“Double Motion”: Herbert and Seventeenth-Century Polyphonic Practice’, in Locating George Herbert: Family, Place, Traditions, ed. by Christopher Hodgkins, a special edition of the George Herbert Journal (2013/14), 146-61.

 ‘A Newly-Identified Setting of George Herbert’s “Even-song” by John Jenkins’, George Herbert Journal, 36 (2012/13), 23-51.

Music

Simon Jackson, Never weather-beaten sail (Trilo), a setting of words by the 17th century poet-composer Thomas Campion (1567-1620, matriculated Peterhouse 1581) based on a Swedish folksong, for solo Alto (or Soprano) and unaccompanied SATB choir with divisi (Encore Publications, 2022). A recording, made by the Choir of Peterhouse, is available here

Amy Beach (1867-1944), adapted by Simon Jackson, Deus est caritas, a setting of words from the Peterhouse Grace for unaccompanied SATB choir (Encore Publications, 2021). A recording, made by the Choir of Peterhouse, is available here

Amy Beach, adapted by Simon Jackson, Moonless darkness, a Christmas carol, setting words by Gerard Manley Hopkins, for unaccompanied SATB choir (Encore Publications, 2021)