Who We Are

We’re the JACK Quartet, a string quartet that champions music by 20th- and 21st-century composers.

We curate and perform programs that include a variety of musical styles by established and emerging artists. With each program, we aspire to create transformative experiences. The music we play asks audiences to listen with their whole beings. With close listening, music has the power to broaden perspectives.

Since our founding in 2005, we have been introducing audiences world-wide to a range of experimental chamber music. We perform everywhere from classical music halls to art galleries to bars. We commission new music and collaborate with composers to bring it to life. We commit to helping dismantle outmoded classical music pipelines for composers through our JACK Studio program, which includes residencies, commissions, readings, and recordings. We’re the Quartet in Residence at The New School in New York City, and we teach at music festivals, conservatories, and universities.

Meet the Quartet

Full Bio

Undeniably our generation’s “leading new-music foursome,” JACK Quartet’s “stylistic range, precision and passion have made the group one of contemporary music’s indispensable ensembles” (The New York Times). Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK Quartet enters their third decade as a pioneering string quartet synchronized in their mission to create an international community through transformative, mind-broadening experiences and close listening. Founded in 2005, JACK Quartet operates as a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and appreciation of 20th and 21st century string quartet music, delving deeply into challenging new compositions and musical practices from a staggering range of stylistic viewpoints. 

JACK Quartet has been awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant, Fromm Music Foundation Prize, Musical America’s 2019 “Ensemble of the Year” Award, Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA's Trailblazer Award, CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, 2024 Chamber Music America’s Michael Jaffee Visionary Award, and the Italian Music Critic's Prize as the Best Ensemble of 2024.

Among the highlights of their 2025-2026 U.S. season, JACK Quartet returns to NYC’s 92NY for a concert featuring new works by JACK Studio Resident Artists Kier GoGwilt, Ailie Ormston, and Jules Reidy and a world premiere by Tristan Perich for string quartet and electronics; a performance at Miller Theatre at Columbia University celebrating the 90th birthday of their musical mentor Helmut Lachenmann; a Cal Performances ensemble debut with a world premiere by Gabriella Smith; a multi-concert residency at The Metropolitan Museum of Art; collaborative work with Ellen Fullman and her long-stringed instrument commissioned by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond; and an appearance at Big Ears Festival with soprano Barbara Hannigan.

International engagements include three concerts at Festival d’Automne (Paris), where JACK Quartet serve as the “Portrait Musicians” of the festival, performing European premieres by Natacha Diels and Ellen Fullman, as well as Georg Friedrich Haas’ In iij Noct, performed in absolute darkness; JACK Quartet’s annual three-concert day-long marathon at Wigmore Hall (UK); and appearances at Pierre Boulez Saal (Germany), Instituzione Universitaria dei Concerti (Italy), Musica Festival Strasbourg (France), Open Music Graz (Austria), Only Connect Oslo (Norway), and Hochschule der Künste Bern (Switzerland), among others. 

JACK Quartet embraces close collaboration with the composers whose work they perform, yielding a radical embodiment of the technical, musical, and emotional aspects of their work. JACK Quartet has both self-commissioned and been commissioned to create new works with artists such as Philip Glass, Georg Friedrich Haas, Liza Lim, Caroline Shaw, and John Zorn, with upcoming and recent premieres by John Luther Adams, Ellen Fullman, Catherine Lamb, George Lewis, Andrew Norman, Terry Riley, Gabriella Smith, and Tyshawn Sorey.

Through intimate, long-standing relationships with many of today’s most creative voices, JACK Quartet has a prolific recording catalog and has been nominated for two GRAMMY® Awards, the most recent being Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance for John Luther Adams’ Waves and Particles. According to Musical America, “many of their recordings are must-haves, for anyone interested in new music.” Other albums include music by Zosha di Castri, Nick Dunston, Jason Eckardt, Helmut Lachenmann, Liza Lim, Christopher Otto, Austin Wulliman, Du Yun, Iannis Xenakis, the complete string quartets of John Zorn and an upcoming release of the complete quartets of Elliott Carter.

JACK Studio was created by JACK Quartet in 2019 to support commissions, recordings, and workshops with emerging music artists who are interested in exploring and expanding the repertory for string quartet. In 2024, JACK Studio expanded to support commissions for string quartet by prominent composers, two-year paid residencies for emerging composers, and annual reading sessions of existing string quartets by emerging composers. By bringing together diverse groups of excellent and adventurous people to not only create new projects, but to contribute to the evolution of the JACK Studio project itself, JACK has created an artistic ecosystem that links the quartet with artists from around the world. 

More than 40 composers have worked with JACK Quartet through JACK Studio thus far, hailing from Argentina, Belarus, Canada, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, South Africa, Syria, and the United States. Their projects have been performed by JACK Quartet at venues including 92NY, TIME:SPANS, MoMA PS1, Ojai Music Festival, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, Lucerne Festival, and Wigmore Hall, in addition to being recorded for professional releases. 

 JACK Quartet has performed to critical acclaim at venues such as Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), UChicago Presents (USA), Library of Congress (USA), Berlin Philharmonie (Germany), BBC Proms (United Kingdom), Royal Library (Denmark), Philharmonie de Paris (France), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), Sydney Opera House (Australia), Salzburg Festival (Switzerland), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Suntory Hall (Japan), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), and Teatro Colón (Argentina). 

JACK Quartet makes their home in New York City, where they are the Quartet-in-Residence at the Mannes School of Music at The New School and provide mentorship to Mannes’ Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet. They teach at summer music festivals such as the Lucerne Festival Academy, Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and New Music on the Point. JACK has a long-standing relationship with the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program, where they teach and collaborate with students each fall and spring.