When you’re an adventurous, risk-taking chamber-music group whose mission is to “champion new string quartet music and the transformative experiences that it creates,” being hailed by The New York Times as “fearless” and “one of contemporary music’s indispensable ensembles” signifies a particular level of “mission accomplished.” But as the three-time Grammy-nominated JACK Quartet—which makes its Festival debut next summer—approaches its 20th anniversary, the group is busier and more inspired (and inspiring) than ever, and we’re thrilled to offer two chances to hear them perform in our 2025 season.
Since the JACK’s four original members—violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland—founded the ensemble at the Eastman School of Music in 2005, the quartet has gone on to distinguish itself in seemingly countless ways while focusing on three key areas of engagement: performing (both live and on recordings), commissioning, and teaching. The JACK has actively and consistently worked to expand both the string quartet repertoire and community and to transform the way music is heard and experienced. “The music we play asks audiences to listen with their whole beings,” the JACK has said. “With close listening, music has the power to broaden perspectives.”
In its current iteration—with Otto, Richards, violinist Austin Wulliman, and cellist Jay Campbell—the JACK, which recently received Chamber Music America’s 2024 Michael Jaffee Visionary Award, performs around the world in support of its clearly defined values of “curiosity, experimentation, connection, and dedication”; the group also serves as quartet-in-residence at the Mannes School of Music in New York City. Commissioning and premiering works that represent what the JACK describes as a “staggering range of stylistic viewpoints” is at the heart of how the ensemble approaches curating its repertoire, and highlights of the 2024–25 season include giving world premieres of works by Anthony Cheung and Ellen Fullman at the 92nd Street Y in New York City and the Beyond: Microtonal Music Festival in Pittsburgh, respectively; the US premiere of music by Juri Seo at Lincoln Center; and the European premiere of a major, five-act multimedia work called Beautiful Trouble by Natacha Diels at the Konzerthaus Berlin. Over the past two decades, the JACK has commissioned and premiered works by such leading composers as John Luther Adams, Philip Glass, George Lewis, Caroline Shaw, Tyshawn Sorey, and Julia Wolfe, among many others.
Another highlight of the JACK’s current season is the expansion of its boundary-breaking JACK Studio, which the group launched in 2019 with funds from the Avery Fisher Career Grant they won that year. The goal of the JACK Studio is to “dismantle outmoded classical music pipelines for composers,” and the program gives access and opportunity to emerging composers from around the world by offering commissions, residencies, readings, workshops, recording sessions, mentoring, and more. This fall, the JACK and its Studio artists head to Potash Hill in Marlboro, Vermont, to undertake the first-ever JACK Studio residency, which runs November 4–9 and includes a public performance on November 8.
The JACK’s highly anticipated Festival performances are on Friday, August 1, and Saturday, August 2, and the first one is a passing of the baton of sorts, as the JACK takes over the role of artist-mentor for the annual Young Composers String Quartet Project—a role that the renowned FLUX Quartet has held for the past 11 seasons, since the Festival launched the Project in 2013. The August 1 concert features the JACK Quartet giving the world premieres of Festival-commissioned string quartets written by the two 2025 Young Composers (who are yet to be announced) and playing other exciting contemporary works.
The August 2 concert takes a decidedly different turn when the JACK performs Otto and Wulliman’s arrangements of works by 14th-century French composers Rodericus and Machaut and 16th-century Italian Renaissance composer Vicentino. The program is an outgrowth of the JACK’s robust Modern Medieval program, which celebrates what the group has described as “neglected though not forgotten rites of the Medieval musical arts,” and which explores “the connections of musicality and thought between European composers of the past and the voices of American music today.”
And speaking of today, subscriptions for our 2025 season are on sale NOW. Explore highlights of the season here, and contact our Ticket Office at 505-982-1890 or tickets@sfcmf.org to purchase your subscriptions or get more information.