JACK Quartet Announces 2025-2026 Season
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Katy Salomon | Primo Artists | VP, Public Relations
katy@primoartists.com | 212.837.8466
New York, NY (September 4, 2025) – Praised for their “once in a lifetime” (Musical America) performances, the GRAMMY®-nominated JACK Quartet, comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, announces their 2025-2026 season. JACK is a pioneering string quartet synchronized in their mission to create an international community through transformative, mind-broadening experiences and close listening. Called “one of contemporary music’s indispensable ensembles” by The New York Times, JACK’s season highlights include an exciting range of projects focused on the creative work that JACK has built in its two decades of existence, while continuing to build their community of collaborators through a dense year of touring and recording activity. At the heart of that activity is the ever-expanding JACK Studio initiative, which fosters the creative growth of emerging composers and supports JACK’s commissioning efforts with established voices in the field.
JACK Quartet made their Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival debut on August 1-2, 2025 at the New Mexico Museum of Art. The debut comprised of two evenings of music, including world premiere festival commissions by Ania Vu and Tyson Gholston Davis, both participating in the Festival’s 12th annual Young Composers String Quartet Project, and a new work by JACK Studio Artist-in-Residence Keir GoGwilt, premiering as part of JACK’s Modern Medieval program.
JACK returned to TIME:SPANS in NYC with two programs: the world premiere of Studio Artist-in-Residence Nursalim Yadi Anugerah’s Aphid and a Palm on the Top of Orange Cliff for string quartet and computer-controlled kadedek—a traditional Borneo mouth organ instrument—on Sunday, August 10, 2025, and the full cycle of Rand Steiger’s work written for JACK over the last five years, performed on August 12, 2025.
In September 2025, JACK will record the legendary minimalist Terry Riley's The Holy Liftoff with flutist Claire Chase, who spearheads the project, which was realized by the composer Samuel Clay Birmaher in collaboration with Riley. Slated for release in 2026 on the Sono Luminus label, the work includes a many-layered orchestra of flutes alongside Chase and JACK's live performance, which ranges from playfully improvisatory to intricately patterned.
In September, JACK begins their fall European tour, which features three long-term collaborations. On Wednesday, September 24, 2025 at 7:30 PM, JACK performs “String Quartets by Lachenmann, Iannotta, and Dreyer” at Pierre Boulez Saal. Close collaborators of Helmut Lachenmann since their formation, JACK performs his Gran Torso and Grido. Their program also includes Clara Iannotta’s dead wasps in the jam-jar (iii), and the world premiere of Doldrums, inertia by Danish composer Mads Emil Dreyer. Then, on Saturday, September 27, 2025 at 7:00pm, JACK presents the European premiere of Natacha Diels’ Beautiful Trouble, a concert-length multimedia performance piece at Festival Musica – Strasbourg. JACK’s engagement at Strasbourg continues with a recital highlighting their work with John Luther Adams, soundscape composer and ardent environmentalist, on Sunday, September 28, 2025 at 6:00 PM, including the European premiere of Adams’ Lines Made by Walking.
On this trip, JACK also embarks on the first of three recitals throughout the fall at the Festival d’Automne à Paris (Paris Autumn Festival), where they will be the “Portrait Musicians.” On September 25, 2025 at 7 PM, JACK performs in the world premiere of legendary instrument builder Ellen Fullman’s Energy Archive 2, offering a deeply personal performance on a sculptural scale. Fullman’s work is a monumental achievement, requiring days of installation for her long string instrument before the first rehearsal can even take place. Energy Archive 2 was created over four years of collaborative rehearsals between Fullman and the members of JACK. Then, on Wednesday November 5, 2025 at 9 PM at Silvia Monfort Theater, JACK performs Natacha Diels’ Beautiful Trouble, in the frame of Festival d’Automne à Paris, which was devised for and with the JACK Quartet and does away with the dividing line between life and the work itself, playing around with the hypnotic omnipresence of images. Wrapping up their engagement with Festival d’Automne à Paris is JACK’s performance of Georg Friedrich Haas’ In iij Noct, a string quartet performed in absolute darkness, on Sunday, November 23, 2025 at 3 PM at Théâtre des Abesses.
On Thursday, October 9, 2025 at 7:30 PM, JACK celebrates the 90th birthday of their musical mentor Helmut Lachenmann—the iconic visionary who has profoundly shaped the landscape of modern classical music—with a performance of his complete works for string quartet at New York City’s Miller Theatre at Columbia University. Recognized as the most important living German composer, bringing Lachenmann’s work to NYC represents a cultural bridge, as well as a landmark in cutting-edge string writing, as JACK is among the very few ensembles globally to have mastered his unique performance techniques.
On Saturday, November 1, 2025 at 4:00 PM, JACK returns to Europe and performs the complete string quartets of Clara Iannotta at the Philharmonie Essen for the NOW! Festival. The four string quartets (recorded by JACK in 2020) by Italian composer Clara Iannotta combine brilliantly captivating soundscapes with mysterious, grounded stories, fitting this year's NOW! theme, "elements." JACK will also perform Lachenmann’s String Quartet No. 2 Reigen seliger Geister.
Next, on Friday November 7, 2025 at 8pm, JACK performs the complete quartets of Lachenmann for his 90th birthday celebration at the Museum of Perception (MUWA) for open music in Graz, Austria. open music, founded in the early 1990s as a concert series in Graz, stands for "communication of today's music," contemporary music in the sense of contemporary relevant musical art and culture that goes beyond the strict division into genre and aesthetic preferences.
JACK performs with composer and pianist Amy Williams at the Buffalo Chamber Music Society on Tuesday, November 11, 2025 at 7:30 PM. The program includes Williams’ works Cineshapes 2, and Tangled Madrigal, as well as JACK violinist Christopher Otto’s Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles, and Nicola Vicentino’s Musica Prisca Caput. The concert will be at Kleinhans Music Hall, with a pre-concert talk starting at 6:45 PM.
On Thursday, November 13, 2025 at 7:30 PM, JACK is featured in a Composer Portrait of Anthony Cheung at Miller Theatre at Columbia University. Experience the captivating music of Anthony Cheung, whose work reveals an interest in the ambiguity of sound sources and shifting transformations of tuning and timbre. An all-star lineup is featured as well as JACK—flutist Claire Chase and quartet Yarn/Wire join Cheung for a dynamic program of recent works. The centerpiece of this program will be Cheung’s Twice Removed, which was commissioned through JACK Studio in 2024.
At the end of November, JACK performs in several international engagements. On Friday, November 21, 2025 at 8:30 PM, JACK again plays Haas’ In iij Noct – String Quartet No. 3, this time in Katowice, Poland at the National Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra. Then on Wednesday, November 26, 2025, JACK heads to Bern, Switzerland to perform Chaya Czernowin’s Hidden at Hochschule der Künste Bern. Finally, JACK appears at Accademia Musicale Chigiana in Siena, Italy on Friday, November 28, 2025 to perform Philip Glass’s String Quartet No. 5, John Zorn’s Remedy of Fortune, and Catherine Lamb’s String Quartet n.1 (two blooms).
Back in the United States, on Sunday, December 7, 2025 at 5:00 PM, JACK and pianist Shai Wosner come together for a program of virtuosic music for piano and string quartet at The Frick Collection. The program includes Henry Purcell’s Fantasy upon one note; Ruth Crawford Seeger’s String Quartet 1931; Wolfgang Rihm’s Interscriptum; Christopher Otto’s Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles; Amy Williams’ Cineshapes 2; George Benjamin’s Relativity Rag; and Thomas Adès’ Piano Quintet.
JACK starts 2026 with a performance at the University of Buffalo of Morton Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet with pianist Amy Williams on Monday January 12, 2026 at 5:00 PM, which is Feldman’s birthdate, celebrating his centenary. The concert also includes Iannis Xenakis’s piece Akéa with pianist Eric Huebner. This is followed by a performance of student composers’ works on Tuesday, January 13, 2026.
Next, JACK travels back to Europe on Friday, January 16, 2026 for a performance of Feldman’s Piano and String Quartet, this time with pianist Florence Millet at Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden in Wuppertal, Germany. This performance is in celebration of the January release of Piano and String Quartet on the Berlin-based label bastille musique.
Back in the United States, the quartet will perform the world premiere of a new work commissioned by VMFA from Ellen Fullman at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond on Friday, January 23, 2026. As the closing program for the exhibition Robert Rauschenberg: Cardbirds, Fullman will debut a composition celebrating Rauschenberg’s practice as a groundbreaking artist who experimented with movement and material. The commission and exhibition, on the advent of the artist’s centennial celebration, are sponsored by a grant from the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation.
On Saturday, January 24, 2026 at 7:00 PM, JACK performs their Modern Medieval program at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, VA, featuring works such as Taylor Brook’s Organum and Phrygea; Christopher Otto’s Angelorum Psalat, after Rodericus, and Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles; Nicola Vicentino’s Musica prisca caput and Madonna, il poco dolce; Austin Wulliman’s Dave's Hocket; and Vicente Atria’s Round-about.
On Saturday, February 7, 2026, JACK returns to Wigmore Hall for their annual three-concert day with performances at 11:30 AM, 3:00 PM, and 7:30 PM. The first concert will consist of Catherine Lamb’s Two Blooms; the second, Hans Abrahamsen’s String Quartet No. 4 and Wolfgang Rihm’s Im Innersten; the final concert includes Helmut Lachenmann’s pieces Grido, Mes Adieux, Gran Torso, and Reigen seliger Geister.
Next, JACK performs at Cal Performances at UC Berkeley (Cal Performances Ensemble Debut) on Sunday, March 15, 2026 at 3:00 PM at Hertz Hall in Berkeley, CA. Here, JACK performs the world premiere of Gabriella Smith’s Aegolius, as well as performing a piece from JACK’s own Austin Wulliman—The Late Edition. Also on the program is Keir GoGwilt’s Treatise on Limited Freedoms: Future Mode 1 and Wolfgang Rihm’s String Quartet No. 3 "Im Innersten", as well as European luminary Hans Abrahamsen’s String Quartet no. 4.
On Friday, March 20, 2026 at 7:30 PM, JACK performs some of the fruits of its JACK Studio program at the The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY)’s Buttenwieser Hall at The Arnhold Center, featuring world premieres of Oblique for string quartet and electronics by Tristan Perich, which continues the composer’s ongoing exploration between acoustic and electronic sound; and new works from Jules Reidy and Ailie Ormston. Treatise on Limited Freedoms by Keir GoGwilt will also be performed during the concert. GoGwilt, Reidy, and Ormston’s works are the culmination of composers’ two-year Artist Residencies with JACK Studio, which supports the development of new works for string quartet that will expand both the vocabulary and audience for these new quartets through their relationships with folk, alternative, and electro-pop styles. Online streaming will also be available for 72 hours following the performance.
JACK performs Ellen Fullman’s Energy Archive at MaerzMusik in Berlin, Germany on Monday, March 23, 2026. MaerzMusik cherishes a legacy of boundary-crossing creativity, thriving between the familiar and the unfamiliar, the classical and the postmodern, fixed genres and genre-bending.
On Monday, April 6 to Wednesday, April 8, 2026 JACK is in residence at the University of Missouri, Mizzou New Music Initiative, followed by a recital on April 8, 2026, collaborating with student composers on new works and presenting a recital of works written for JACK, including music by Anthony Cheung, Clara Iannotta, and Amy Williams. This is the first year of a planned 3-year residency at Mizzou for JACK.
JACK once again performs Georg Friedrich Haas’ In iij. Noct. – String Quartet No. 3 in total darkness, this time at REDCAT in Los Angeles, CA on Thursday, April 9, 2026 at 8:30 PM as part of the LA Phil’s Body and Sound: Music In Five Senses festival. Georg Friedrich Haas’s visionary string quartet is designed to be performed in total darkness, creating a uniquely physical concert experience. In the words of the quartet’s “darkness rider” for these works, “The outline of one’s hand will ideally not be visible even when directly in front of their face. The darkness is absolute, and the effect is disorienting: an audience member feels they have become absorbed in an India ink level of blackness with no visual cues to demarcate the size and shape of the space or their relation to it.”
On Saturday, April 25, 2026 at 9 PM, JACK heads back to Europe for Only Connect Oslo to perform Natacha Diels’ Beautiful Trouble at Kulturkirken Jakob.
In their 25-26 season, JACK has several residences, including the Quartet in Residence at MetLiveArts, offering performances at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. For their inaugural concert of the residency on December 14, 2025 at 6:30 PM and 8:15 PM, JACK will perform a holiday-season homage to medieval music in the Romanesque Hall at The Met Cloisters. This program of new and old works is inspired by the most daring musical experiments of the Middle Ages.
JACK continues their long-standing relationship at the University of Iowa School of Music for the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program with residencies in December 2025 and March 2026. JACK will workshop drafts by student composers, teach chamber music, and give a recital of student works on Wednesday, March 11 at 8:30 PM, which will also be livestreamed here.
As the Quartet-in-Residence at the Mannes School of Music, JACK will perform two free concerts open to the general public in the fall and spring. These concerts will feature a mix of modernist classics as well as the latest creations from JACK Studio Artists.
JACK Studio was created by JACK Quartet in 2019 to support commissions, recordings, and workshops with emerging music artists who are interested in exploring and expanding the repertory for string quartet. Building on their established success, JACK increased the reach of JACK Studio in 2025 to support commissions for string quartet by prominent composers with two-year paid residencies for emerging composers and annual reading sessions of existing string quartets by emerging composers. In their 25-26 season, JACK will welcome two new Artists-in-Residence who will be selected through a free and open application process. Through workshops, rehearsals, and mentorships with established composers, these artists will embark on the process of creating new works with JACK. Studio Readings with eight to ten artists with existing works for string quartet will take place in December 2025. These sessions will be recorded, and the artists are welcome to use the audiovisual documentation for their professional advancement. The recorded Readings sessions are made available for viewing on JACK’s website and YouTube channel, providing additional visibility and outreach for this group of emerging composers.
This season, JACK will also begin development on a new work with NYC-based composer and improviser Charmaine Lee, which will incorporate electronics and string quartet. JACK will welcome the general public to share in the development process with Lee by holding open rehearsals at the Mannes School of Music.
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