John Luther Adams: Everything That Rises JACK Quartet

• 1 Everything That Rises 56:21
• Total Runtime 56:21

Info for John Luther Adams: Everything That Rises

Formed by an intrepid group of Eastman School of Music students in 2007, the JACK Quartet has established a well-earned reputation as one of the world’s premier chamber groups devoted to contemporary works by living composers, inspiring the Boston Globe to call them “superheroes of the new music world.” They have performed on the prestigious stages of Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center and received the Trailblazer Award from New Music USA, the CMS/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, and the Martin E. Segal Award from Lincoln Center. They have worked extensively with modern masters including Steve Reich, John Zorn, Roger Reynolds, Georg Friedrich Haas, and of course John Luther Adams, with whom they recorded Adams’ 2015 Cold Blue Music release The Wind in High Places.

“'Everything That Rises,' my fourth quartet, grew out of 'Sila: The Breath of the World'—a concert-length choral/orchestral work composed on a rising series of sixteen harmonic clouds. This music traverses that same territory, but in a much more melodic way. Each musician is a soloist, playing throughout. Time floats and the lines spin out, always rising, in acoustically perfect intervals that grow progressively smaller as they spiral upward…until the music dissolves into the soft noise of the bows, sighing.” (John Luther Adams)

JACK Quartet

JACK Quartet
Deemed "superheroes of the new music world" (Boston Globe), the JACK Quartet is "the go-to quartet for contemporary music, tying impeccable musicianship to intellectual ferocity and a take-no-prisoners sense of commitment." (Washington Post) "They are a musical vehicle of choice to the next great composers who walk among us." (Toronto Star)

The recipient of Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA's Trailblazer Award, and the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming, JACK has performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), Miller Theatre (USA), Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Netherlands), IRCAM (France), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Suntory Hall (Japan), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Festival Internacional Cervatino (Mexico), and Teatro Colón (Argentina).

Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK is focused on new work, leading them to collaborate with composers John Luther Adams, Chaya Czernowin, Simon Steen-Andersen, Caroline Shaw, Helmut Lachenmann, Steve Reich, Matthias Pintscher, and John Zorn. Upcoming and recent premieres include works by Derek Bermel, Cenk Ergün, Roger Reynolds, Toby Twining, and Georg Friedrich Haas.

JACK operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and spread of new string quartet music. Dedicated to education, the quartet spends two weeks each summer teaching at New Music on the Point, a contemporary chamber music festival in Vermont for young performers and composers. JACK has a long-standing relationships with the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program, where they teach and collaborate with students each fall, and the Boston University Center for New Music, where they visit each semester. Additionally, the quartet makes regular visits to schools including Columbia University, Harvard University, New York University, Princeton University, Stanford University, and the University of Washington.

John Luther Adams
This week celebrates the music of the Pulitzer Prize and GRAMMY-winning composer John Luther Adams, whose innovative works are the products of a uniquely American viewpoint, with emphasis on the natural world, the Alaskan wilderness, and the culture of the arctic Inuit people and other indigenous populations. Adams has composed for a wide range of settings including chamber ensembles, orchestra, film, television, voice, and electronics. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music in recognition of his orchestral piece Become Ocean, which was also awarded a GRAMMY for Best Contemporary Classical Composition. He received a second GRAMMY for his percussion piece Inuksuit. Adams served as Associated Professor of Composition at Oberlin Conservatory, was named a Rockefeller Fellow, and has received grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. He was the recipient of the 2010 Nemmers Prize in Music Composition, cited by the selection committee for “melding the physical and musical worlds into a unique artistic vision that transcends stylistic boundaries.”

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