Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts > Music: Festival and Indoors

About the Quartet-in-Residence Program
In 1999, Caramoor established the annual String Quartet-in-Residence program supported by major endowment gifts from The Ernst C. Stiefel Foundation. It is Caramoor's goal to use the residency format to integrate a quartet into the life of the institution and the community. The Jasper String Quartet is the eleventh Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at Caramoor; previous quartets have included: the Avalon String Quartet, Miró Quartet, Pacifica Quartet, Rossetti String Quartet, the Daedalus Quartet, the Amernet String Quartet, the Jupiter String Quartet, the Parker String Quartet, the Escher String Quartet and the Ariel String Quartet.

It can be argued that the United States has the most effective teaching mechanism for training professional musicians. There can be no doubt that America has more wonderful young players than performance outlets. Given this reality, a promising performer or ensemble needs as much perseverance as talent to launch a career. From Caramoor’s perspective, it takes commitment, intelligence, and patience to build an audience for young performers. Addressing these realities, the Ernst Stiefel String Quartet Residency gives Caramoor a chance to present a quartet each year for the advancement of its reputation and career, as well as to enhance the life of the Caramoor community.

During the fall and spring, the Residency includes participation in the Student Strings program involving schools in many of the local school districts.

The quartet visits each participating school for a brief "Concert and Conversation," after which the young string students visit Caramoor for an instructional string clinic under the supervision of the quartet members. Many of the young students come, with their families, to hear the full-length concerts in the Music Room. For some, this is their first experience of a chamber music concert.

About the Quartet

The Jasper String Quartet has been hailed as "sonically delightful and expressively compelling" (The Strad) and as having played "brilliantl... with excellent interplayer communication" (The Santa Fe New Mexican). The communication comes naturally as J and Rachel are married and all four members are close friends, living within a block of each other in New Haven, CT.

Winners of the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2008 Plowman Chamber Music Competition, the Grand Prize at the 2008 Coleman Competition, First Prize at Chamber Music Yellow Springs 2008, and the Silver Medal at the 2008 and 2009 Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions, the Jaspers are currently the graduate quartet-in-residence at the Yale School of Music, studying with the Tokyo String Quartet. In 2010 they joined the roster of Astral Artists after winning their national auditions.

The Jaspers are the 2009-10 Ernst Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, joining an elite group of previous Stiefel Quartets including the Miro, Pacifica, and Jupiter Quartets. In 2009, they were the first ensemble to win the Yale School of Music's Horatio Parker Memorial Prize, an award established in 1945 and selected by the faculty for "best fulfilling... lofty musical ideals." In addition, the Jaspers were finalists in the 2009 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition and the 2008 Concert Artists Guild Competition.

Originally formed at Oberlin Conservatory, the Jaspers began pursuing a professional career when they became Rice University's graduate quartet-in-residence in 2006 studying with James Dunham, Norman Fischer, and Kenneth Goldsmith. The quartet has performed across the United States and in Canada, Norway, England, Italy, and Japan.

The Jasper Quartet is dedicated to performing pieces emotionally significant to its members, ranging from Haydn and Beethoven through Ligeti, Webern, and Ades. This season they are inaugurating a series of programs called Understanding... through music!. These programs aim to explore a country, time, or event through its music by connecting repertoire and historical or social happenings through writings and in-concert talking. The first program explores the music of the Eastern European nations of Hungary and the Czech Republic. The second focuses on the Second Viennese School and juxtaposes two great innovators-Beethoven and Webern.

Highlights of this season include a return to Japan to perform at the Tokyo Spring Festival and residencies at the Caramoor Center, Naples "Chamber Classics," and Juneau Jazz and Classics. The Jaspers look forward to collaborations with the Fischer Duo, Ilya Itin and Paul Cho. Their 2010 summer plans include residencies at the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival and Chamber Music Northwest. This past summer they performed Mendelssohn's Octet with the Tokyo String Quartet at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and participated in the Pacific Music Festival in Japan and La Jolla SummerFest in California.

The Jaspers have attended the Aspen Music Festival's Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, the Emerson Quartet International Chamber Music Workshop, the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. In the Melba and Orville Roleffson Residency at the Banff Centre they embarked on "guerilla chamber music," performing concerts in unusual settings around Alberta. During their time at the Shepherd School of Music the quartet collaborated with the Houston Friends of Chamber Music to bring quartet programs into local high schools. They continue this work with educational residencies and their work as teaching assistants of Yale’s undergraduate chamber music course.

The Jasper String Quartet is named after Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Its members come from St. Louis, MO (J), Tokyo, Japan (Sae), Fairbanks, AK (Sam) and Ann Arbor, MI (Rachel). For more information please visit www.jasperquartet.com

Upcoming Concerts
March 20 Caramoor Classics Series
Saturday, 8:00pm ~ Rosen House Music Room
Tickets: $25.00 order online program notes & bio

Beethoven		Quartet in F Major, Op.18 No.1
Webern		Langsamer Satz
Webern		5 Movements for String Quartet, Op. 5
Beethoven		Quartet in E-flat Major, Op. 127