Early and Late-Breaking Music Mastery Comes to Santa Barbara

It was 20 years ago that the phenomenon known as the JACK Quartet began its slow, steady, and precipitous rise to the upper regions of string quartet culture devoted largely to music of our time, and then some. It was roughly 10 years ago that JACK began its occasional intersection with the concert music scene in the 805, mostly showing their engaging musical wares at the Music Academy of the West and at the Ojai Music Festival (where, most recently, cellist Jay Campbell gave some riveting performances in June).

In the midst of its 20th anniversary season, JACK returns to the Music Academy of the West (MAW) as part of MAW’s young and fast-growing “Mariposa Series” of concerts in that august summer program’s “off-season.” On Saturday, December 7, JACK will present a program aptly dubbed Modern Medieval, with a sampler plate of new works and first violinist Christopher Otto’s recent deep-diving adventure, re-treating medieval music dating back as far as the 14th century. Such an early-modern paradox isn’t, in fact, so much a paradox, given the natural exploratory cross-talk of contemporary music and the innate historical sources out of which it grows and ponders.

Just as Motel 6 outgrew the origin story of its name — offering motor hotel rooms for six dollars — JACK’s origin story has shifted. It all began in 2005, with students of the Eastman School of Music championing contemporary repertoire and as an acronym of its founders’ first names, being violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards and cellist Kevin McFarland. Currently, the lineup replaces Streisfeld with Austin Wulliman and McFarland with Campbell.

But the original personnel were on hand and in town in 2015, when JACK performed a memorable concert at Hahn Hall — partly in connection with Streisfeld’s status as a proud MAW alum. (Although not performing next week, Streisfeld will be on hand for a post-concert Q&A.)

In an interview at the time, Streisfeld noted that “my three summers at the Music Academy of the West were some of the most important experiences for my growth as a musician. I made friendships that have lasted through the years and have yielded all sorts of collaborations.

“Also, some of the musical ideas I learned as a student at MAW have stuck with me to this day. One in particular has become one of the main doctrines for the JACK Quartet. Peter Salaff — with whom I studied chamber music at MAW — told me one summer during a coaching on Bartók Second String Quartet to approach every piece of music with the same care and perfection that one would approach Haydn and Mozart. Naturally, with Bartók, we were trying to bring out the Hungarian flair and edge; however, we were neglecting the basics of beauty of tone, intonation, perfect ensemble balance, etcetera.

“Once these issues were addressed, we could add all the edge we wanted to bring out the Bartók character; however, without that fundamental work, it would just sound messy. This philosophy has applied to JACK from the beginning. We approach every new quartet with the same care that we would approach Haydn or Mozart.” 

As an example of the group’s musical focus, that original Hahn Hall program included music by then established composers John Zorn and Iannis Xenakis, and fast-rising composers Matthias Pintscher and Caroline Shaw (the latter two have been spotlighted as guests in past Music Academy seasons).

Doing a crash course on what makes JACK tick, and excel, requires only a visit to a streaming portal of your choice, sampling the 25-plus titles in a necessarily diverse discography. Pop by their Spotify home, and stay awhile. Recent releases include the captivating album John Luther Adams: Wave and Particles (link), on the venerable and important Los Angeles–based Cold Blue label. Cold Blue was also the label home for the Luther Adams/JACK album Lines Made by Walking, which earned a Grammy nomination in 2022.

Also in 2024, they released Jeff Myers’s darkly contemplative Requiem and the edgier, more dissonant Jason Eckardt: Passage. Their rich catalog includes numerous commissioned works, support for emerging young composers and lauded performances of music by such prominent composers as Xenakis, Steve Reich, Georg Friedrich Haas, and Helmut Lachenmann (also a featured composer at June’s Ojai festival). 

JACK’s international story continues apace, 20 years into the adventure. A decade back, Streisfeld emphasized an important thing in our interview, relevant to the now older, wiser, and more deeply entrenched JACK enterprise: “When JACK formed, we had one main idea: to learn and perform incredible contemporary string quartets. It has been a wonderful adventure, and we are happy we have been as successful as we have been. We never worried about how we were going to carve out a niche for ourselves in the string quartet world. We just wanted to play great music together.”