Contact
Clara Rempecr@karstenwitt.com+49 30 214 594-233
Floriane Schroetter fs(at)karstenwitt.com +49 30 214 594-210
European Management (except Italy: Resia Artists)
Christopher Otto, violinAustin Wulliman, violinJohn Pickford Richards, violaJay Campbell, cello
Hailed by The New York Times as “our leading new-music foursome”, the JACK Quartet is one of the most acclaimed, renowned, and respected groups performing today. JACK has maintained an unwavering commitment to their mission of performing and commissioning new works, giving voice to underheard composers, and cultivating an ever-greater sense of openness toward contemporary classical music. The quartet was selected as Musical America’s 2018 “Ensemble of the Year”, named to WQXR’s “19 for 19 Artists to Watch”, and awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant. Highlights of the 2022/23 season include the world premiere of Liza Lim's new work String Creatures at the Lucerne Festival and the Musikfest Berlin as well as concerts at Klangspuren Schwaz, Barcelona Quartet Biennale, Southbank Center London, Boulez Saal Berlin, Danish Library Copenhagen, and a three-concert focus day at the Wigmore Hall in London.
Through intimate relationships with today’s most creative voices, JACK embraces close collaboration with the composers they perform, leading to a radical embodiment of the technical, musical, and emotional aspects of their work. The quartet has worked with artists such as Julia Wolfe, George Lewis, Chaya Czernowin, Helmut Lachenmann, Caroline Shaw, and Simon Steen-Andersen, with upcoming and recent premieres including works by Tyshawn Sorey, Sabrina Schroeder, John Luther Adams, Clara Iannotta, Philip Glass, Catherine Lamb, Lester St. Louis, and John Zorn. JACK’s all-access initiative, JACK Studio, commissions a selection of artists each year, who will receive money, workshop time, mentorship, and resources to develop new work to be performed and recorded by the quartet.
JACK has been covered by all major news outlets, with the Boston Globe calling them "superheroes of the new music world", the Washington Post heralding them as "the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity and a take-no-prisoners sense of commitment", and NPR stating “no one today has the command of [contemporary] music like the young JACK quartet.”
JACK has performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), Berlin Philharmonie (Germany), Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Netherlands), The Louvre (France), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Suntory Hall (Japan), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), and Teatro Colón (Argentina). Additional awards include Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA's Trailblazer Award, and the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.
According to Musical America, “many of their recordings are must-haves, for anyone interested in new music.” Among their dozens of releases, their Cold Blue Music album of John Luther Adams’ Everything That Rises was praised as “a wise and eloquent performance” by the San Francisco Chronicle, their concept album Imaginist with the Le Boeuf Brothers was nominated for a GRAMMY award in 2018, and their complete Xenakis: String Quartets was named one of TimeOut New York’s “Top Recordings of the Year.” Other albums include music by Helmut Lachenmann, Du Yun, Amy Williams, Elliott Sharp, Hannah Lash, Horatiu Radulescu, and more.
Committed to education, JACK is the Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music, who host the JACK Frontiers Festival, a multi-faceted festival of contemporary music for string quartet. They also teach each summer at New Music on the Point, a contemporary chamber music festival in Vermont for young performers and composers, and at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. JACK has long-standing relationships with the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program, where they teach and collaborate with students each fall and spring, as well as with the Lucerne Festival Academy, of which the four members are all alumni. Additionally, the quartet collaborates with young composers at schools including Columbia University, Harvard University, New York University, Princeton University, and Stanford University.
Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and appreciation of new string quartet music.
2022/23 Season
This biography is to be reproduced without any changes, omissions or additions, unless expressly authorised by the artist management.
Pulitzer Prize-winning composer John Luther Adams emerged from decades of full-time environmental activism with a rich artistic voice and a belief that music can do more to change the world than politics. Adams' vision of a musical expression searching for its future home through a grounded presence in our natural world has inspired JACK Quartet to create nine quartets with him, including our GRAMMY-nominated album Lines Made By Walking. Letting the natural resonance of the quartet's strings ring out as if swept by the wind atop a mountain or tracing the steps of Adams' daily walks in the Montana foothills, the music is an invitation to inhabit space and sound and to rediscover a fascination with music's very relationship to the natural world.
Modifications and further programmes on request.
Beautiful trouble
Natache Diels: Beautiful Trouble for string quartet, video, and electronics
JACK stars in Beautiful Trouble, a six-episode video series by Natacha Diels. JACK and Natacha are in the process of developing a live concert version with video, electronics, and choreographed string quartet.
Co-commissioned by the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, TIME:SPANS, and the New York State Council on the Arts.
Videos and more information here.
JACK Quartet’s committed performances are a model of flawless ensemble and intonation, captured in very clear sound.
Gramophone.
Elliott Carter, String Quartet No 3
JACK Quartet performs Lachenmann's Grido | Live from Columbia
Natacha Diels, "On Monday"
Scott Lee, JACK Quartet, Steven Beck, Russel LacyPanoramic Recordings, 2020, pan20
Roger Reynolds, JACK QuartetMode Records, 2020, MDE MOD-CD-326
John Luther Adams, JACK QuartetCold Blue Label, 2020, B08F8G38VQ
Dan Trueman, JACK Quartet, So PercussionNew Amsterdam Records, 2019
JACK Quartet, Julia Den Boer, yarn/wire, International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, Ensemble Ekmeles New Focus Recordings, 2019, fcr227
JACK Quartet, yarn/wire, Calder Quartet, Emanuele Torquati, Duo Dillon-Dorquati, Keith Kirchoff Kairos, 2019, 0015048KAI
Clara Ianotta, JACK QuartetWergo, 2020, WER 64332
Du Yun, JACK QuartetModern Sky Ltd., 2020, B08F3DVK41
Cenk Ergün, JACK QuartetNew Focus Recordings, 2020, fcr238
Here for the full discography