<\/p>\n
The JACK Quartet of New York City has been\u00a0championing string quartet music of the 20th and 21st centuries since\u00a0its\u00a0founding in 2005.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s just so many great string quartets that perform the works of the classical canon,\u201d says violinist Austin Wulliman. \u201cWhat we feel is needed are people who are dedicated not to owning their interpretation of Beethoven, but to owning their ability to be sensitive to new ways of taking this skill set that we learn as classical musicians and applying that to a different kind of expressive output.\u201d<\/p>\n The quartet\u00a0(Wulliman, violinist Christopher Otto, violist John Pickford Richards and cellist Jay Campbell)\u00a0appears in\u00a0Berkeley in its\u00a0Cal Performances debut\u00a0on\u00a0March 15 in a concert\u00a0including\u00a0the\u00a0premiere of Bay Area composer Gabriella Smith\u2019s \u201cAegolius\u201d; the West Coast premieres of\u00a0Wulliman\u2019s\u00a0\u201cThe Late Edition\u201d and Keir\u00a0GoGwilt\u2019s\u00a0\u201cTreatise on Limited Freedoms: Future Mode 1\u201d; Hans Abrahamsen\u2019s String Quartet No. 4; and Wolfgang Rihm\u2019s String Quartet No.\u00a03, \u201cIm\u00a0Innersten.\u201d<\/p>\n The concert begins with\u00a0the 2025\u00a0piece\u00a0\u201cThe Late Edition\u201d:\u00a0\u201cThere\u2019s a bunch of\u00a0pattern\u00a0on a very clear rhythmic structure you can see passing through different time scales,\u201d says\u00a0Wulliman.\u00a0\u201cBut at the same time,\u00a0there\u2019s\u00a0these harmonies that sound like\u00a0they\u2019re\u00a0plumbing from the string quartets of the past that\u00a0emerge\u00a0and fold back into that texture.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0full of rhythmic energy that you\u00a0couldn\u2019t\u00a0have without rock \u2019n\u2019 roll.\u201d<\/p>\n GoGwilt, 35, who was born in\u00a0Edinburgh,\u00a0Scotland\u00a0and raised in New York City, shares his imaginative exploration of the Baroque style in\u00a02024\u2019s\u00a0\u201cTreatise on Limited Freedoms: Future Mode 1.\u201d<\/p>\n Wulliman\u00a0explains,\u00a0\u201cHe\u2019s imagining a different treatise on what pitches are and rewriting what we think of as the scale we hear.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0fiddling through different cool lines and fascinating little passageworks for the instruments, and we even have a chance to improvise with ornamentation.\u201d<\/p>\n Danish composer Abrahamsen\u2019s 2012 opus has what\u00a0Wulliman\u00a0calls a very pure, almost crystal-like structure:\u00a0\u201cYou get to see different patterns of light emerge through very simple melodies that are\u00a0in\u00a0very different time scales,\u201d he says. \u201cSo\u00a0you\u2019ll hear one thing that sounds like the light is refracting over a bunch of surfaces, and in another\u00a0way\u00a0you see a very pure beam of light swing across the room.\u201d<\/p>\n The quartet, having performed Smith\u2019s\u00a02015\u00a0\u201cCarrot Revolution\u201d for string quartet many times,\u00a0commissioned her\u00a0for\u00a0a new work\u00a0for this concert: \u201cAegolius.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cGabriella\u2019s piece sounds like\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0a swirl from nature, but unlike the Abrahamsen piece, which has\u00a0these kind of pure patterns,\u00a0hers\u00a0feels like the wind rushing through something,\u201d\u00a0Wulliman\u00a0says. \u201cIt\u2019s\u00a0so unpredictable, you never know where\u00a0it\u2019s\u00a0going to be, but you still feel it in your whole\u00a0body\u00a0and it sweeps you away.\u00a0It\u2019s\u00a0very exhilarating music.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAegolius\u201d moves the quartet in special ways\u00a0consistent with how Smith\u2019s works are\u00a0often inspired by the environment:\u00a0\u201cIt also has amazing outbursts of an instrumental kind of virtuosity from this texture that feels like it\u2019s invoking something natural, and then you see our bodies kind of take it up and move it to this instrumental virtuosic place,\u201d\u00a0Wulliman\u00a0says.<\/p>\n German composer\u00a0Rihm\u2019s\u00a0(1952-2024) 1976 piece\u00a0\u201cIm\u00a0Innersten\u201d\u00a0concludes the program with a style evocative of a bygone era.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an emotionally elating journey through his relationship with the expressive music of Europe\u2019s past,\u201d\u00a0Wulliman\u00a0says. \u201cAt times, it\u2019s very tortured, very intense, and at other times, it\u2019s just incredibly beautiful, lush and full of romantic expression.\u201d<\/p>\n The ensemble,\u00a0quartet-in-residence at the Mannes School of Music at The New School in New York City,\u00a0teaches at festivals,\u00a0conservatories\u00a0and universities nationwide and internationally. It continues to\u00a0support the growth of the string quartet repertory through\u00a0commissions,\u00a0residencies\u00a0and recordings.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re already planning another decade of commissions with the JACK Studio program to take the work we\u2019ve done over the early part of our career, like learning how to be a string quartet, how to embrace the creative process and make new things, and create the works that define our perspective on what makes us curious about contemporary music today,\u201d\u00a0Wulliman\u00a0says.<\/p>\n Cal Performances presents the JACK Quartet at 3 p.m. March 15 in Hertz Hall on the University of California, Berkeley campus. Tickets are $50-$55 at\u00a0<\/em>c<\/em><\/a>alperformances.org<\/em>\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n The post New music champions JACK Quartet make Cal Performances debut<\/a> appeared first on Local News Matters<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source piedmontexedra.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The JACK Quartet of New York City has been\u00a0championing string quartet music of the 20th and 21st centuries since\u00a0its\u00a0founding in 2005. \u201cThere\u2019s just so many great string quartets that perform the works of the classical canon,\u201d says violinist Austin Wulliman. \u201cWhat we feel is needed are people who are dedicated not to owning their interpretation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2329648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2329647","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/New-music-champions-JACK-Quartet-make-Cal-Performances-debut.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329647","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2329647"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2329649,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2329647\/revisions\/2329649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2329648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2329647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2329647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2329647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}