MUSIC

American string quartet JACK Quartet will perform eight works by members of the Harvard Group for New Music, seven of them being world premieres, on Saturday March 2 at Harvard’s newly-renovated Paine Hall. The Harvard Group for New Music, or HGNM, comprised of composers from the graduate program in music, invites guest ensembles for four different concerts each year. All concerts are free and open to the public, and are followed by a reception with food and drink.

The pieces featured on this program are moil by Ann Cleare (Ireland), Proof Resilience by Marta Gentilucci (Italy), smothered bodies, slender bodies by Justin Hoke (Pennsylvania), Decke and Containment by Timothy McCormack (Ohio), String Quartet no. 1 - parapente, achillea by Manuela Meier (Austria), ordinances(B) by Marek Poliks (New York) and a new work by Sabrina Schroeder (Canada). Each composer approaches the iconic instrumentation of the string quartet with their own unique voice, and the pieces represent a broad range of contemporary concert music styles.

Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland, the JACK Quartet has quickly become one of the most exciting and sought-after interpreters of new music. Focused on the commissioning and performance of new works, they have worked closely with composers Helmut Lachenmann, György Kurtág, Matthias Pintscher, Georg Friedrich Haas, James Dillon, and many others. The JACK Quartet electrifies audiences worldwide with “explosive virtuosity” (Boston Globe) and “viscerally exciting performances” (New York Times). David Patrick Stearns proclaimed their performance as being “among the most stimulating new-music concerts of my experience.” The Washington Post commented, “The string quartet may be a 250-year-old contraption, but young, brilliant groups like the JACK Quartet are keeping it thrillingly vital.”