Upcoming Events
MaerzMusik
JACK Quartet + Ellen Fullman
When Ellen Fullman plays the Long String Instrument she designed, it’s as if she were walking among the strings of a giant grand piano. The American composer, performer, and instrument builder moves between rows of strings over twenty meters long, setting them into vibration with her fingertips, bringing architectural spaces around the world to life with sound. For MaerzMusik 2026, Fullman continues her exploration of the Long String Instrument – this time together with the JACK Quartet. “In my music I wish to reveal the physics of string vibration itself, intending to bring awareness to the beauty of the structure of the universe in which we live.”
Program:
Ellen Fullman, Energy Archive 4 (2026) World Premiere
for Long String Instrument and string quartet
There will be two performances on March 23, at 7:00 PM and 9:00 PM, each lasting approximately one hour.
Pierre Boulez Saal
Pierre Boulez Saal
JACK Quartet returns to Pierre Boulez Saal for an intensely intimate look at the world of extended string sounds with a World Premiere by Danish composer Mads Emil Dreyer, two string quartets by close collaborator Helmut Lachenmann, and Clara Iannotta’s dead wasps in the jam-jar (iii) for prepared string quartet and sine waves.
Program:
Mads Emil Dreyer: Doldrums, inertia (World Premiere)
Helmut Lachenmann: String Quartet No. 3 "Grido"
Clara Iannotta: dead wasps in the jam-jar (iii)
Helmut Lachenmann: String Quartet No. 1 "Gran Torso"
This concert is part of Berlin's Month of Contemporary Music.
Pierre Boulez Saal
Boulez 100
Pierre Boulez’s Livre pour quatuor is rich with musical complexity and radical thinking, a vast statement from a provactive young composer. At the same time, the score—left unfinished—also has a fragmentary quality. JACK performs individual movements from Boulez’s only string quartet, creating fragmentary conversation between them and their predecesor Anton Webern's Six Bagatelles and the recent, aphoristic Nothing More by Eva-Maria Houben. Anthony Cheung's richly expressive Twice Removed provides a further take on multi-layered artistic expressions, while Austin Wulliman's Escape Rites draws its inspiration from Boulez' friendship with John Cage, who wrote his String Quartet in Four Parts while corresponding with Boulez, who was writing his Livre.
Program:
Pierre Boulez, Livre pour quatuor (Excerpts)
Eva-Maria Houben, Nothing More for String Quartet
Anton Webern, Six Bagatelles for String Quartet Op. 9
John Cage, String Quartet in Four Parts
Austin Wulliman, Escape Rites
Anthony Cheung, Twice Removed
Anthony Cheung’s Twice Removed was commissioned by JACK Quartet with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, 92nd Street Y, and Wigmore Hall.
Pierre Boulez Saal
Carrot Revolution: Works by Ruth Crawford Seeger, Morton Feldman, Gabriella Smith, and others
Austin Wulliman, Dave's Hocket
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