David Jaeger

David Jaeger is a music producer, composer, and broadcaster. He joined the CBC in 1973 as a radio music producer for various series including Music of Today, which included 10 broadcasts he produced in 1974 with Glenn Gould, in celebration of the centennial of composer Arnold Schoenberg. Jaeger and Gould remained friends and collaborators until Gould’s death in 1982. Jaeger created “Two New Hours,” an important contemporary music series in Canada which was heard on the national CBC Radio Two network from 1978 to 2007. During that time he commissioned over 300 original musical works for presentation on air, and broadcast more that 3,000 world premiere performances. 

He supported the creation of important new music festivals, such as the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra’s long running new music festival, broadcasting hundreds of live concerts. 

From 1974 to 2002 he served as the CBC Radio coordinator of the CBC/Radio-Canada National Radio Competition for Young Composers, encouraging the establishment of a new wave of Canadian composers.

In the early 1970s Jaeger established a digital sound synthesis facility at the University of Toronto, one of the first in Canada. In 1971 he co-founded the Canadian Electronic Ensemble (CEE), the longest running live electronic ensemble in the world. With the CEE he commissioned dozens of new works for live electronic performance. In 2002 Jaeger was elected President of the International Rostrum of Composers, and was the only non-European ever to be named to this post. He served as President for six years.

Jaeger’s compositions range from chamber music to vocal and choral works and opera, as well as orchestral and electronic music. His works for the piano form a large portion of his canon, most of it added since his retirement from CBC in 2013. Since that date, Jaeger has concentrated increasingly on compositions for solo instruments and voices, often based on literary texts. His Nocturnes, written between 2020 and 2023, are all based on poetry he compiled from several authors who he has collaborated with: David Cameron, Seán Haldane, Bruce Whiteman, and his pianist collaborator, Christina Petrowska Quilico. Jaeger won numerous broadcasting awards, including the CBC President’s Award in 2009. He was named a member of the Order of Canada in 2018.