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

Tickets and info

Program:

Christopher Otto: Angelorum Psalat, after Rodericus (14th c.)

Caleb Burhans: Contritus

Nicola Vicentino: Madonna il poco dolce (16th c.)

Nicola Vicentino: Musica Prisca Caput (16th c.)

Amy Williams: Tangled Madrigals

Christopher Otto: Fumeux par fumee, after Solage (14th c.)

Gabriella Smith: Carrot Revolution (10')

JACK’s beloved long-time collaborator is celebrated with a concert of her rhythmically intricate and beautifully coloristic music. Features the WORLD PREMIERE of a brand new work for string quartet: Tangled Madrigal as well as Amy joining JACK onstage showcasing her unique pianistic skills.

Tickets and Info

Program:

AMY WILLIAMS Tangled Madrigal for string quartet (2024) WORLD PREMIERE, MILLER THEATRE COMMISSION

AMY WILLIAMS Bells and Whistles (2022) for piano trio

AMY WILLIAMS Richter Textures (2011)

AMY WILLIAMS Cineshape 2 (2007) for piano and string quartet

Album Release Event: Austin Wulliman: The News From Utopia

Wednesday, September 27, 2023

• 8:00 PM 9:30 PM

• Roulette (map)

The News From Utopia is my debut album as composer. The record is a solo project built from many multi-tracked layers of me, which I composed, recorded and mixed.

THIS EVENT WILL ALSO BE STREAMED AT THE LINK BELOW

The live experience will incorporate electronics built of samples from the album, as well as live performances from JACK Quartet and video by JACK Studio artist Iván Decoud. Additionally, the concert includes the US Premiere of Down Pat for electric guitar and electronics, written for the unique talents of guitarist and composer Alec Goldfarb. Not satisfied with only arranging the album material, I also wrote two entirely new string quartets for the event: The Late Edition which burns at a fiery pace and Lost One in which we get lost on a path in the woods together.

The News is built from a web of musical conspiracy theories that coalesce into imagery and a nonlinear network of narrative. A field of pixels comes into focus, a series of images scroll past your phone screen, a dark veil falls over the noonday sun, a nightscape of the desert melts into the sea roiling with whitecaps and you wake up with your heart racing, eyes wide. My latest work, Down Pat, tunes the guitar to the electrical ground, using MIDI interface to control an extended ratio-based tuning system. 50 hz, 60 hz, 440 hz and an increasing concatenation of 11s and 5s and 3s build a network of polyrhythm, harmony, and scalar logics that our plugged-in guitar hero embodies: the king is their castle. The performance also features a video premiere by Argentinian multimedia artist Iván Decoud for the track BLINK.

Program: all music by Austin Wulliman

SYSTEM NOTES (2023) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics

BLINK (2022) – World Premiere for string quartet, electric guitar and electronics

Down Pat (2023) – US Premiere for electric guitar and electronics

   -Alec Goldfarb, guitar

The Late Edition (2023) - World Premiere for string quartet

Lost One (2024) — World Premiere for string quartet

The Docks (2022) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics

The News From Utopia (ii) (2024) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics

TICKETS and INFO

JACK Quartet premieres 8 new works by students at Baltimore’s Peabody Insitute.

FREE: more info here

Friday, February 2, 2024

• 8:00 PM 9:30 PM

• Harold Prince Theatre (map)

Beautiful Trouble - World Premiere

Natacha Diels, Beautiful Trouble (2024)

JACK Quartet makes its Penn Live Arts debut in the world premiere of Natacha Diels’ Beautiful Trouble. Based on a five-part video series for choreographed string quartet, this concert-length production merges experimental music, video and theatre to create a sensory experience that considers our ability and desire to consume media. Diels created the work to examine a moment in time through the power of abstract narrative and music, both heard and seen.

Creative Team: JACK Quartet, Performers; Natacha Diels, Composer, Director, Video Designer; Julia Bumke Lead Producer; Matthew Craig, Technical Director, Sound Designer; Kent Sprague, Lighting Designer; Maile Okamura, Costume Designer

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.

INFO

Friday, December 15, 2023

• 4:00 PM 8:00 PM

• Mannes School of Music (map)

2nd Annual JACK Studio Festival

JACK closes 2023 at home in New York City with the 2nd annual JACK Studio Festival on December 15, 2023. This festival is held in partnership with Mannes School of Music at the The New School in New York City, where JACK is the  quartet-in-residence.

The festival will showcase premieres by JACK Studio composers Zara Ali, Seare Farhat, Tatiana Gerasimenok, Rishin Singh, and Sakari Vanderveer. It also features a screening of Lost & Founds, a film by Daniel Iván Bruno commissioned and performed by JACK Quartet. Each of these artists has worked with JACK for a two-year residency, during which they received paid provides composers from the Ensemble’s JACK Studio program opportunities to develop new work, hear their music performed by JACK Quartet, and get mentorship from performers in their field.

The Phillips Collection

• Sunday, December 3, 2023

• 4:00 PM 6:00 PM

• The Phillips Collection (map)

Modern Medieval

Christopher Otto, Angelorum Psalat, after Rodericus

Caleb Burhans, Contritus

Nicola Vicentino, Madonna il poco dolce

Nicola Vicentino, Musica Prisca Caput

Gabriella Smith, Carrot Revolution

Christopher Otto, Fumeux par fumee, after Solage

John Zorn, The Remedy of Fortune

Monday, November 6, 2023

• 8:00 PM 9:30 PM

• La Fabrika (map)

JACK Quartet: Zorn

Cat o' Nine Tails

The Alchemist

The Remedy of Fortune

Necronomicon

LINK

Wednesday, November 1, 2023

• 8:00 PM 10:00 PM

• Cité de la Musique (map)

Hannigan Sings Zorn

Program: All by John Zorn

Pandora’s Box for soprano and string quartet

TICKETS

Thursday, October 26, 2023

• 7:30 PM 9:00 PM

• Herbst Theatre (map)

John Luther Adams 70th Birthday Celebration

Program: All by John Luther Adams

“Rising” from Untouched

Lines Made by Walking

The Wind in High Places

LINK

Thursday, September 21, 2023

• 8:00 PM 10:00 PM

• Miller Theatre at Columbia University (map)

John Zorn at 70: Music for Strings

Program: All by John Zorn

Sigil Magick: A Curious and Detailed Exposition of Sigils, Signs, and Hieroglyphs Peculiar to the Occult Orders, Hermetic Brotherhoods, and Dark Mystery Schools of the Late Middle Ages for string quintet (2020)

Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will Be Able to Present Itself as a Science for string sextet (2020)

TICKETS and INFO

Pre-release and order on the Bright Shiny Things label website.

Intimate listening party and preview performance of “Down Pat” for MIDI triggering Electric Guitar performed by Alec Goldfarb at Scholes Street Studio at 7:30 PM. Contact form on website to reserve a spot, limited space.

The News From Utopia, my debut release as composer, broadcasts a transmission of coloristic beauty powered by an obsession with a series of images and musical conspiracy theories. A cast of sonic characters find new expression in each vignette within this non-linear narrative: an impressionistic dream of the sea emerging under desert stars, a self-portrait from inside the eyeballs, a parody of the demagogue, the view from inside the social media algorithm, a reading of Zadie Smith’s “The Lazy River”. Composed, recorded, and mixed between March 2020 and December 2022, violins swell with lush harmonic warmth, bustle with neurotic energy, and spin webs of rhythmic buoyancy, making note of fleeting moments of clarity as time slips away.

Saturday, September 9, 2023

• 12:00 PM 11:00 PM

• Walker Arts Center (map)

Zorn @ 70: On the Stage

12-hour immersive festival featuring JACK with Zorn’s key musical collaborators, including Bill Frisell, Julian Lage, John Medeski, Ches Smith, Kenny Wollesen, and Sae Hashimoto.