Winner, Astral Artists’ 2010 National Auditions
Winner of the 2012 Cleveland Quartet Award, the Jasper String Quartet has been hailed as “sonically delightful and expressively compelling” by The Strad and “powerful” by The New York Times. The Classical Voice of North Carolina says they play “with sparkling vitality and great verve,…polished, engaged, and in tune with one another.” Based in New Haven, Connecticut, the Jasper Quartet enjoys prestigious appointments as 2010-2012 Quartet-in-Residence at Oberlin Conservatory and Ensemble-in-Residence at Classic Chamber Concerts in Naples, Florida.
After winning the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize in the 2008 Plowman Chamber Music Competition, the Jaspers went on to win the Grand Prize at the 2008 Coleman Competition, First Prize at Chamber Music Yellow Springs 2008, and the Silver Medal at both the 2008 and 2009 Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions. They were the first ensemble to win the Yale School of Music’s Horatio Parker Memorial Prize (in 2009), an award established in 1945 and selected by the faculty for “best fulfilling…lofty musical ideals.” The quartet also won Astral Artists’ 2010 National Auditions and made their Philadelphia recital debut on Astral’s series in October 2010.
The Jaspers perform pieces emotionally significant to its members, ranging from Haydn and Beethoven to Berg, Ligeti, and living composers. They have already commissioned four string quartets from today’s up-and-coming composers, and critics and audiences continue to commend the Jasper Quartet’s “programming savvy” (clevelandclassical.com). They have performed throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, England, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, and Panama, and recently released their first CD, The Kernis Project: Beethoven, the first in a set of recordings for the Sono Luminus label that pairs Aaron Jay Kernis’ quartets with their influences.
The Jasper Quartet has brought well over 100 outreach programs into schools and enjoys educational work of all types. In their Melba and Orville Roleffson Residency at the Banff Centre, they embarked on a “guerilla chamber music” program, performing concerts in unusual settings around Alberta, Canada. The Jaspers recently completed the 2009-2011 Ernst C. Stiefel String Quartet Residency at the Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, and has worked closely with Caramoor and with Astral Artists to bring outreach activities to schools.
Originally formed at Oberlin Conservatory, the Jasper Quartet began pursuing a professional career in 2006 while studying with James Dunham, Norman Fischer, and Kenneth Goldsmith as Rice University’s Graduate Quartet-in-Residence. In 2008, the quartet continued its training with the Tokyo String Quartet, as Yale University’s Graduate Quartet-in-Residence.
The members of The Jasper String Quartet are J Freivogel, violin; Sae Chonabayashi, violin; Sam Quintal, viola; and Rachel Henderson Freivogel, cello. The Jasper String Quartet is named after Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Members J and Rachel are married.
Updated: DECEMBER 2011
