It was announced last week that the JACK Quartet will be undergoing a major personnel shift, with violinist Ari Streisfeld and cellist Kevin McFarland departing the group after August 5. The ensemble will make one of its final appearances with all its original members on a free concert at Rutgers’ Mason Gross School of the Arts in New Brunswick on July 27 at 7 p.m.
On the program will be works by Streisfeld, Hannah Lash, Caroline Shaw, and Derek Bermel. Bermel was artist-in-residence at the Institute for Advance Study in Princeton from 2009 to 2013. Shaw, at 30 the youngest recipient of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2013, is a Ph.D. candidate at Princeton University.
Though the compositions will be “new,” the music will be influenced by works and styles of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
As one of today’s premiere contemporary music ensembles, the JACK Quartet is unsurpassed in its ability to navigate unusual challenges. If you think a simple personnel shift is going to change anything, then you really don’t know JACK.
You can read more about the group, the upcoming concert, and the impending transition in my article in today’s Trenton Times.
http://www.nj.com/times-entertainment/index.ssf/2016/07/classical_music_jack_quartet_p.html
