JACK Celebrates our 20th anniversary in style with a concert of works written for us including the world premiere of a new quartet by Anthony Cheung. INFO ALSO STREAMING LIVE

PROGRAM

Eduardo Aguilar, HYPER

Seare Farhat, Aporias

Juri Seo, Three Imaginary Chansons

Anthony Cheung, New Work (World Premiere)

Online streaming also available for 72 hours following the performance.

Very excited to open for Alex Sopp, Charlotte Mundy and Natacha Diels’ new trio WENDY at Cute Lab on Sunday, Nov. 3 at 8 PM.

I’m playing works for violin and tape by myself, Connor Elias Way and Yaz Lancaster.

Cute Lab

61 9TH ST, BROOKLYN, NY 11215 (look for the red door)

You can also search for "IncrediPole" to find the building more easily on GMaps.

I’m excited to play with The Knights again at Carnegie Hall on Oct 24 playing this wonderfully varied program.

Program

KEITH JARRETT Suite from Book of Ways (arr. Michael P. Atkinson, World Premiere)

BEETHOVEN Symphony No. 4

MICHAEL SCHACHTER New Work (World Premiere, co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall)

GERSHWIN Rhapsody in Blue (arr. Michael P. Atkinson)

Performers

The Knights
Colin Jacobsen, Artistic Director and Violin
Eric Jacobsen, Artistic Director and Conductor
Aaron Diehl, Piano

The Tree of Heaven: New Music for Harpsichord and Strings by Alec Goldfarb & Joshua Alvarez Mastel

St. Paul's Chapel, 1160 Amsterdam Ave., New York, NY 10027

AVAILABLE to stream LIVE on YouTube, link below.

The Tree of Heaven and sky goes dark are two new works for microtonal double-manual harpsichord and strings that explore Renaissance theories of cosmology and their musical implications. Drawing on Nicola Vicentino’s 16th-century musical tuning system, Mastel and Goldfarb explore harmonic realms that stretch the boundaries of Vicentino's theory. Through this expanded system the works echo and transform the celestial harmony envisioned during the Renaissance, bridging historical and contemporary music.

PROGRAM

sky goes dark — Joshua Alvarez Mastel

The Tree of Heaven — Alec Goldfarb

PERFORMERS

Alec Goldfarb, guitar

Joshua Alvarez Mastel, harpsichord

Austin Wulliman, violin

Daniel Hass, cello

Julian Bennett Holmes, organ

Joshua Alvarez Mastel writes instrumental and electronic music which has been performed internationally by Yarn/Wire, ekmeles, ensemble mosaik, and Schallfeld Ensemble. In addition to composing concert music, he makes sound pieces using field recordings, motorized hardware, and digital sound, often for live performance. 

Alec Goldfarb is a Downbeat Magazine award-winning guitarist, composer, and Hindustani classical musician based in Brooklyn whose music is “full of ingenious juxtapositions and twists” (The Wire). He served as inaugural composer in residence for Jonah Bokaer Choreography in 2018, premiering new works at the Joyce and across the East Coast. Other performances include Roulette Intermedium, Skanu Mezs, Darmstadt Ferienkurse, the Yellow Barn, the Kimmel Center, Frequency Festival, the Clark, Asia Society NYC, the Jazz Gallery, and more. He played on the Deutscher Jazz Preis Award winning album "Orlando Furioso" in 2023 as well as the Deutscher Jazz Preis Award nominated "Phantom Islands" in 2024.

Live at St. Paul’s Chapel — or, watch on YouTube.

In celebration of composer/saxophonist Travis Laplante’s new release “The Golden Lock” JACK Quartet gives a performance of his String Quartet No. 1, written for us in 2023. The evening includes performances by Travis with various amazing collaborators and will be a concert filled with intense musical expression. Come join us for a great vibe at Roulette on Oct 3!

INFO streaming live and in archive at this link.

AND is me, Nataniel Edelman (piano) and Daniel Iván Bruno (trombone and electronics) and in celebration of our new release on the brand new Sello Pasmoso we will play a set of improvised music LIVE on Muito Radio

Join us on the internet waves or in person. Tickets at the door.

As part of our role as Mannes School of Music Quartet-in-Residence JACK Quartet performs a special evening of music at the renowned Auditorium on 12th Street at The New School, including my work “Dave’s Hocket”.

JACK Quartet's Modern Medieval program explores the connections of musicality and thought between European composers of the past and the voices of music today, featuring works by JACK members, as well as Vicente Atria (JACK Studio Commission), Taylor Brook, Johnny MacMillan, and Juri Seo (JACK Studio Commission).

Admission is free / space is limited.

Program:

Taylor Brook: Organum  [2017]
Christopher Otto: Angelorum Psalat, after Rodericus [2011 / c. 1390]

Nicola Vicentino: Musica prisca caput // Madonna, il poco dolce [c. 1555]

Vicente Atria: Round-about [2024]
Austin Wulliman: Dave’s Hocket [2024]

Christopher Otto: Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles [2023 / 1594]

Taylor Brook: Phrygea [2017]

Johnny MacMillan: Songs from the Seventh Floor [2021]

Christopher Otto: Fumeux fume par fumee, after Solage [2018 / c. 1390]

Juri Seo: Three Imaginary Chansons [2024]
I. Descent of the Serpent
II. Swan Song
III. Confronted Cocks and Running Dogs
Taylor Brook: Ars Nova [2017]


FREE show on Princeton University Campus featuring the world premiere Connor Elias Way’s 25-minute work ‘The Sun Must Bear No Name,’ performed, recorded and mixed for multi-tracked violins by me. Connor’s piece uses dense networks of canons to form clouds of shapeshifting harmony, like striated lines of hot blown glass. On the same program, PSK presents its first Mixtape concert for the academic year, in which various artists and ensembles perform new works by Princeton University faculty member Jason Treuting, and graduate student composers Hannah Ishizaki and Nathan Schram.

New works by

• Hannah Ishizaki

• Nathan Schram

• Jason Treuting

• Connor Elias Way

Performed by

• Nathan Meltzer

• Beth Meyers

• Nathan Schram

• Wynona Wang

• Austin Wulliman

JACK performs Timothy McCormack’s singular statement on string writing, your body is a volume. This concert-length work builds its sound world from radically detuned strings played with exquisitely controlled bow speed to generate a purring rumb that blossoms to envelope the listener in its rattling roar.

INFO

My trope on Guillaume de Machaut’s Hoquetus David, mashed up with Arvo Pärt’s Fratres and retuned in extended just intonation rides again on August 9 at Lincoln Center. Dave’s Hocket imagines the music of Machaut refracted through the stained glass of a humble cathedral, fractalizing the rhythms into 7s, 3s, 4s, and 3s inside 3s. Modern nostalgia and irony mixed with utopian thinking abound.

The rest of the program is some of my favorite stuff JACK is playing right now: Gabriella Smith,

INFO it’s free but reserve your spot

My piece for JACK’s Modern Medieval program, Dave’s Hocket, will be presented alongside music by Gabriella Smith, Chris Otto, Ruth Crawford Seeger and Caroline Shaw by Carnegie Hall at Madison Square Park.

July 17, 2024: 6 PM

INFO

Takt Trio brings new pieces by Hilda Paredes and Marcos Balter to Miller Theater for their NYC premieres in a FREE show on May 20 at 6 PM.

Free drinks and seating on stage for an up-close work at some virtuosic music for violin, horn and piano.

GYÖRGY LIGETI Trio for Violin, Horn, and Piano (1982)

HILDA PAREDES Koan (2023) NEW YORK PREMIERE

MARCOS BALTER new work for Takt Trio (2024) NEW YORK PREMIERE

More info on Miller Theater Website

Carrot Revolution: Works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Morton Feldman, Gabriella Smith, and others

Austin Wulliman, Hoquetus David on Guillaume de Machaut
Gabriella Smith, Carrot Revolution for String Quartet
Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet 1931
Morton Feldman, Structures for String Quartet
Cenk Ergün, Sonare for String Quartet

Tickets and info

Modern Medieval
JACK Quartet gives three performances at Wigmore Hall in one day - 11:30am, 3:00pm, 7:30pm

Includes my new work “Dave’s Hocket” inspired by Guillaume de Machaut.

Concert 1 Program:
Nathaniel Giles (arr. Christopher Otto), Misere
Amy Williams, Tangled Madrigal (2024)
Elliott Carter, String Quartet No. 1

Concert 2 Program:
Juri Seo, Three Imaginary Chansons (World Premiere)
Johnny Macmillan, Songs From the Seventh Floor
Nicola Vicentino, Madonna il poco dolce
Vicente Atria, New Work (World Premiere)

Concert 3 Program:
Austin Wulliman, Dave’s Hocket
Gabriella Smith, Carrot Revolution
Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet 1931
Morton Feldman, Structures
Cenk Ergün, Sonare
Liza Lim, String Creatures (UK Premiere)

Tickets and Info

Renowned flutist Claire Chase and JACK Quartet premiere a new, Stanford Live commissioned piece by composer Terry Riley. Full of otherworldly chorales and interstellar grooves this piece channels energy from another plane!

Terry Riley, Holy Liftoff (Premiere)

Co-commissioned by Stanford Live and generously supported by the Stanford Live Commissions and Programming Fund.

TICKETS and INFO

Trios at the Newman Center in Denver with Conor Hanick, piano and David Byrd-Marrow, horn

Hilda Paredes: Koan (Colorado Premiere)

György Ligeti: Trio for Violin, Horn and Piano, Hommage à Brahms

Johannes Brahms: Trio in E-flat Major for Horn, Violin, and Piano, Op. 40

TICKETS and INFO

JACK Quartet brings an eclectic program to the Melbourne Recital Centre’s Elisabeth Murdoch Hall, featuring the Australian Premiere of Liza Lim’s String Creatures, alongside music by Elliott Carter and Ruth Seeger Crawford.

Concert 1:

Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet 1931
Elliott Carter, String Quartet No.1
Liza Lim, String Creatures (Australian Premiere)

Concert 2:

Vicente Hansen Atria - New Work for string quartet 

Johnny Macmillan - Songs from the Seventh Floor 

Christopher Otto: Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles 

Caleb Burhans - Contritus 

Austin Wulliman - Dave’s Hocket

Gabriella Smith - Carrot Revolution 

Liza Lim’s String Creatures is co-commissioned by the Lucerne Festival, Miller Theatre at Columbia University and Melbourne Recital Centre.

Tickets and info

JACK Quartet’s Australian tour continues with a recital at the lush grounds of the Ukaria Cultural Center, featuring music by Liza Lim, Elliott Carter, Nathanial Giles arranged by JACK Quartet’ Christopher Otto.

Nathaniel Giles, Misere (Arr. Christopher Otto)
Elliott Carter, String Quartet No.1
Liza Lim, String Creatures (Australian Premiere)

Liza Lim’s String Creatures is co-commissioned by the Lucerne Festival, Miller Theatre at Columbia University and Melbourne Recital Centre.

Tickets and info

For their Sydney Opera House debut, JACK Quartet pairs Johnny MacMillan’s experimental 2022 string quartet Songs from the Seventh Floor – which tips its hat to the music of the Renaissance – with music by Renaissance composers Nicola Vicentino and Nathaniel Giels reimagined by JACK Quartet's own Christopher Otto, on a program alongside a brand new work written for the JACK Quartet by American composer and pianist Amy Williams.The program comes to a close with String Creatures, written for the JACK Quartet by Australian composer Liza Lim, in which she explores the nature of string itself.

Johnny MacMillian, Songs from the Seventh Floor
Nicola Vicentino, Madonna il poco dolce
Nathaniel Giles, Misere (Arr. Christopher Otto)
Amy Williams, Tangled Madrigal (2024)
Liza Lim, String Creatures

Liza Lim’s String Creatures is co-commissioned by the Lucerne Festival, Miller Theatre at Columbia University and Melbourne Recital Centre.

Tickets and info

Free concert (Registration required link below) at our home in NYC, the Mannes School of Music.

Johnny Macmillan: Songs from the Seventh Floor (2023)

Christopher Otto: Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles (2024)

Elliott Carter: String quartet no. 1 (1951)

Tickets and Info

JACK Quartet will give a recital as a part of their Clark Residency at the Eastman School of Music.

Johnny Macmillan, Songs from the Seventh Floor
Elliott Carter, String Quartet no. 1

This concert will also be livestreamed.

INFO

Rocketing ecstatically between sadness and joyfulness, Natacha Diels’s Beautiful Trouble is an evening-length ‘opera’ (as dramatic spectacle) for JACK Quartet that explores a slim window of human existence. Moments gathered like precious stones coalesce to create both sense and nonsense, forming a logic all the piece’s own. Organizing the stones just so reveals clarity in chaos, if only for a moment.

Tickets and info for the performance at Roulette in Brooklyn.

Touching on elements of:
work ethic (humans as puppets),
dystopia,
the beauty of nightmares,
unmistakable loves,
childlikeness (play),
just music,
protest (no more wars),
loss,
nature as commodity (or not),
the beauty of silliness (playful nonsense),
long walks,
and wholeness.

Beautiful Trouble was developed with support from Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, TIME:SPANS, The Barlow Foundation and the Sachs Program for Arts Innovation. Workshops were hosted by Mannes School of Music at The New School.

WORLD PREMIERE of a brand new work for solo violin by long-time friend and collaborator Timothy McCormack on a concert at the Boston Conservatory of Music at Berklee.

the hand is an ear / the ear is a heart

Details: FREE

JACK gives the world premiere of Jeffrey Mumford’s new work written for us in a Sunday matinee in Beantown. See you at the Isabella Stewart Gardner museum for a lively afternoon!

Jeffrey Mumford, deepening paths of resonant light (World Premiere)*
Christopher Otto, Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles
John Zorn, Necronomicon
Amy Williams, Tangled Madrigal (2024)
Iannis Xenakis, Tetras

Info and Tickets

My “The Late Edition” and music by Chris Otto and Amy Williams all get Chicago premieres and we bring favorites by John Zorn and Iannis Xenakis to my oldest of haunts, Constellation. Grab a drink and get comfortable for a wild ride of quartet shredding!

Austin Wulliman, The Late Edition (2024) 
Christopher Otto, Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles
John Zorn, Necronomicon
Amy Williams, Tangled Madrigal (2024)
Iannis Xenakis, Tetras

Info and Tickets

FREE CONCERT info here

New works by U of Iowa composers

I’m splitting the bill with one of my favorite musicians in Chicago on Feb 25. Cory Smythe and I close out the always-amazing Frequency Festival, which brings me back for my first solo performance in Chicago since I moved to NYC in 2016.

I played Steve Reich’s “Violin Phase” at the first concert held at Constellation, so it’s pretty fitting and very exciting that I’m bringing my own loops to Chicago for this gig.

Alec Goldfarb joins me for a performance of my Down Pat for MIDI-triggering electric guitar…inspired in part by Electric Counterpoint by Reich, Pat Matheny’s “The Way Up”, Eddie Van Halen, as well as intonational conspiracy theories and number games based on 50 and 60 hz electrical current and Romitelli’s “Trash TV Trance”

I’ll present new solo adaptations of some material from my record “The News From Utopia” and some late-breaking, hot-off-the press polyrhythmic pyramid-building.

And I’m very excited to add the World Premiere of Isolation by Yaz Lancaster to the set list. Yaz wrote the piece for me to record and produce the Tape Part and then improvise using their score instructions. It’s a beautiful and haunting vibe.

Full set list:

SYSTEM NOTES for solo vln and electronics (world premiere)

BLINK for vln/guitar with tape plus video by Ivan Decoud

Down Pat for MIDI triggering Electric Guitar (Alec Goldfarb, guitar)

Isolation by Yaz Lancaster for solo vln and electronics (world premiere)

News for Chicago for solo vln and electronics (world premiere)

TICKETS