JACK Quartet has been named Musical America’s 2019 Ensemble of the Year. In his tribute article, Allan Kozinn said of the quartet: “This group’s fresh, energetic, and stylistically omnivorous approach to the contemporary repertoire makes it a worthy heir to the tradition of new-music quartets that goes back to the Composers Quartet in the 1960s and rivals the Kronos and Arditti Quartets of today…If JACK thought a piece was worth programming, you wanted to be there to hear why.”
The announcement precedes the December publication of the 2019 Musical America International Directory of the Performing Arts, which, in addition to its comprehensive industry listings, pays homage to each of these artists in its editorial pages. The annual Musical America Awards will be presented in a special ceremony at Carnegie Hall on December 11, 2018.
JACK’s 2018-19 concert season will take them to 27 cities in 9 countries across 2 continents, performing numerous world premieres from a diverse selection of composers. The ensemble will continue to grow their presence in the UK and Europe with their debut at the Berlin Philharmonie, a return to Wigmore Hall in the UK, and concerts in Italy, Slovenia, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. The rest of the season will be in North America with performances in Canada, Mexico, and across the United States, including 9 educational residencies.
With world premieres by Cristina García Islas, Michel Roth, John Zorn, Miya Masaoka, Richard Karpen, Juan Pampin, and dozens of student composers, the JACK Quartet is set to feature a diverse body of new work. Performances will include works by Zosha Di Castri, Sabrina Schroeder, Liza Lim, Marcos Balter, and Andreia Pinto Correia, along with a special focus on the works of John Zorn, Tyshawn Sorey, Chaya Czernowin, and the complete quartets of Elliott Carter performed at London’s Wigmore Hall on April 6, and New York City’s Morgan Library & Museum on April 13.