Upcoming Events
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall: Three Programmes in a Single Day
JACK Quartet returns to Wigmore Hall for their annual three-concert day with performances at 11:30 AM, 3:00 PM, and 7:30 PM.
Concert #1: 11:30 AM
The first of JACK Quartet’s three programmes at Wigmore Hall in a single day, built from works commissioned for the Kronos Quartet’s Fifty for the Future project, promises to astonish and inspire with its hypnotic focus and thrilling energy. Sky Macklay’s Vertebrae runs up and down scale fragments like notes ‘played by a prehistoric person on a xylophone of sun-dried bones’, while Mark Applebaum’s Flashlight voyages to ‘an alternate universe where this piece was written by Haydn.
Sky Macklay: Vertebrae
Nicole lizee: darkness is not well lit
Barry Guy: what is the word
Onutè Narbutaitė: just strings and a light wind above them
Mark Applebaum: flashlight
Concert #2: 3:00 PM
Two of JACK Quartet founding member Christopher Otto’s compositions receive their UK première this afternoon, including the latest iteration of his 3x4x5, created in 2017 and now expanded to include a greater range of material. ‘It’s kind of a network of pathways through different harmonies at different times,’ he says of the original score. Lost One stems from Escape Rites, the JACK Quartet’s 2025 album collaboration with Austin Wulliman. Wulliman’s piece, writes Hump Day News, is ‘A bit eerie. A bit anxious making. Floating in the air like an unanswered question.’
Christopher Otto: Cascade Quartet (UK premiere)
Austin Wulliman: Lost One (UK premiere)
Austin Wulliman: Escape Rites (UK premiere)
Christopher Otto: 3x4x5x7+Loblied (with tape) (UK premiere)
Concert #3: 7:30 PM
Georg Friedrich Haas’s Eighth String Quartet seems to bend time and space as it draws its audience into some far-distant universe. The piece, written for and first performed by the JACK Quartet in 2014, contrasts with the constantly-shifting terrain of the fourth quartet by Philip Glass, composed in 1989 in remembrance of the artist Brian Buczak. The JACK Quartet’s day-long festival of new work concludes with a series of notable UK firsts by composers based in the United States.
Georg Friedrich Haas: String quartet no. 8
Philip Glass: String quartet no. 3 “Buczak”
Juri Seo: Dahlia (UK premiere)
Gabriella Smith: Aegolius (UK premiere)
Tristan Perich: A Series of Short Works, Open-Ended, Somewhat Optimistic (UK premiere), for string quartet and 1-bit electronics, commissioned by JACK Studio with the support of 92NY and NYSCA
Wigmore Hall
Wigmore Hall 125th Anniversary Season
JACK Quartet returns to Wigmore Hall for their annual three-concert day with performances at 11:30 AM, 3:00 PM, and 7:30 PM.
Concert #1: 11:30 AM
Catherine Lamb , String Quartet No. 1 (Two Blooms)
Two blooms grows from a sustained unison that shimmers as its texture changes. American composer Catherine Lamb’s meditative single-movement work, written in 2009 and later recorded by JACK Quartet, blurs the boundaries between harmony, melody and rhythm to create a transcendent unity of shimmering sound.
Concert #2: 3:00 PM
Hans Abrahamsen, Quartet No. 4
Wolfgang Rihm, String Quartet No. 3 'Im Innersten'
‘High in the sky singing‘ and ‘Dark, Heavy and Earthy’ are among the descriptions applied to the four movements of Quartet No. 4 by Hans Abrahamsen, Oliver Knussen’s Professor of Composition at London’s Royal Academy of Music. JACK Quartet places the Danish composer’s vibrant score in company with Wolfgang Rihm’s impassioned ‘Im Innersten’, composed 50 years ago yet utterly compelling in its contemporary relevance.
Concert #3: 7:30 PM
Helmut Lachenmann, Grido
Helmut Lachenmann, Mes Adieux
Helmut Lachenmann, Gran Torso
Helmut Lachenmann, Reigen seliger Geister
JACK Quartet’s recording of Helmut Lachenmann’s three string quartets, released in 2014, was lauded for its technical precision, dynamic intensity and seductive beauty. The group’s feeling for his distinctive music, with its radical approach to sound and its production, has deepened in the years since. JACK concludes its latest Wigmore Hall outing with a tribute to the German composer just a few months after his 90th birthday.
The New York Times: Helmut Lachenmann’s Music is Like Nothing Else
Wigmore Hall
JACK Quartet at Wigmore Hall
JACK Quartet returns to London’s Wigmore Hall - giving three performances in one day - 11:30am, 3:00pm, 7:30pm
Concert 1 Program:
Philip Glass, String Quartet No. 5
Heinz Holliger, String Quartet No. 2
Concert 2 Program:
Elliott Carter, String Quartet No. 5
Eduardo Aguilar, HYPER
Helmut Lachenmann, String Quartet No. 3 'Grido'
Concert 3 Program:
Pierre Boulez, Livre pour quatuor: 1b
Eva-Maria Houben, Nothing More
Pierre Boulez, Livre pour quatuor: 3c
Anton Webern, 6 Bagatellen Op. 9
John Cage, String Quartet in 4 Parts
Pierre Boulez, Livre pour quatuor: 1a
Austin Wulliman, Escape Rites (UK Premiere)
Anthony Cheung, Twice Removed (UK Premiere)
Pierre Boulez, Livre pour quatuor: 2
Anthony Cheung’s Twice Removed was commissioned by JACK Quartet with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, The 92nd Street Y, and Wigmore Hall.
Wigmore Hall
Modern Medieval
JACK Quartet gives three performances at Wigmore Hall in one day - 11:30am, 3:00pm, 7:30pm
Concert 1 Program:
Christopher Otto, Miserere, after Nathaniel Giles (UK Premiere)
Amy Williams, Tangled Madrigal (UK Premiere)
Elliott Carter, String Quartet No. 1
Concert 2 Program:
Juri Seo, Three Imaginary Chansons (UK Premiere)
Johnny MacMillan, Songs From the Seventh Floor (UK Premiere)
Nicola Vicentino, Madonna il poco dolce
Vicente Atria, Roundabout (World Premiere)
Concert 3 Program:
Austin Wulliman, Dave's Hocket (UK Premiere)
Gabriella Smith, Carrot Revolution
Ruth Crawford Seeger, String Quartet 1931
Morton Feldman, Structures
Cenk Ergün, Sonare
Liza Lim, String Creatures (UK Premiere)