JACK Quartet © Beowulf Sheehan
JACK Quartet
As one of today’s most sought-after ensembles, the JACK Quartet remains dedicated to performing and commissioning new works, giving voice to under-performed composers and promoting openness to contemporary music.
The JACK Quartet embraces close collaboration with the composers whose work they perform, yielding a radical embodiment of the technical, musical and emotional aspects of their work. JACK Quartet has both self-commissioned and been commissioned to create new works with artists such as Philip Glass, Julia Wolfe, Helmut Lachenmann and Caroline Shaw, with upcoming and recent premieres including works by John Luther Adams, George Lewis, Catherine Lamb, Liza Lim, Tyshawn Sorey, Amy Williams and John Zorn.
They initiated the JACK Studio project, providing funding, workshops and consultative guidance to enable composers each year to develop new works to be interpreted and recorded by the Quartet. So far, 40 composers from all over the world have worked with the project.
JACK Quartet has performed to critical acclaim at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Philharmonie Berlin, Wigmore Hall, Muziekgebouw, Louvre, Kölner Philharmonie, Sydney Opera House, the Lucerne Festival, La Biennale di Venezia, Suntory Hall, Bali Arts Festival, Festival Internacional Cervantino and Teatro Colón.
Among their honours, they have earned an Avery Fisher Career Grant and the Fromm Music Foundation Prize, been selected as Musical America’s 2018 Ensemble of the Year and received Lincoln Center’s Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA’s Trailblazer Award and the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming. They have been nominated for two GRAMMY Awards, the most recent being Best Chamber Music / Small Ensemble Performance for John Luther Adams’ Waves and Particles. Other albums include music by Helmut Lachenmann, Catherine Lamb, Du Yun, Nick Dunston, Zosha Di Castri, Iannis Xenakis, Elliott Carter and John Zorn.
JACK Quartet are Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music at The New School and provide mentorship to Mannes’s Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet. They teach at summer music festivals such as the Lucerne Festival Academy, Banff Centre for the Arts, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival and New Music on the Point. JACK Quartet has long-standing relationships with the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program.
As of October 20225