JACK Quartet With Tyshawn Sorey, Percussion to Perform at 92NY in December

The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY), one of New York's leading cultural venues, presents JACK Quartet with Tyshawn Sorey, percussion on Saturday, December 16, 2023 at 7:30 pm at Buttenwieser Hall at The Arnhold Center. Online streaming is also available for 72 hours following the performance. Tickets start at $25 and are available at https://www.92ny.org/event/jack-quartet-with-tyshawn-sorey.

A US premiere from brilliant composer, multi-instrumentalist, and MacArthur Fellow Tyshawn Sorey in performance with JACK Quartet - the ensemble thrillingly presenting chamber music for the 21st century. Celebrated for his extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation, Sorey furthers his longtime collaboration with the modern string quartet champions with For Grachan Moncur III. Following a world premiere at the Lucerne Festival in summer 2022, the work is in homage to Moncur - the late composer and trombonist who blazed a trail through modern jazz in the 1960s, shares Sorey's Newark, NJ roots, and had a major influence on Sorey's musical development.

This concert is under 90 minutes and will be performed without intermission. Join us in the hall's lounge following the performance and meet the artist.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Hailed by The New York Times as "our leading new-music foursome," and described as "expert in the most ferociously difficult modern scores'' by The New Yorker, the GRAMMY-nominated JACK Quartet is one of the most respected experimental string quartets performing today, synchronized in its mission to create international community through transformative, mind-broadening experiences and close listening. Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK was founded in 2005 and operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and appreciation of 20th and 21st century string quartet music. Through intimate, longstanding relationships with many of today's most creative voices, the quartet has a prolific commissioning and recording catalog and has been nominated for three GRAMMY Awards.

More than 40 composers have worked with JACK 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 at venues including TIME:SPANS, Central Park, the Lucerne Festival, MoMA PS1, and Mannes School of Music, in addition to being recorded for professional releases. Commissioned artists have been paired with musical mentors including Marcos Balter, Clara Iannotta, George Lewis, Catherine Lamb, Georg Friedrich Haas, Donnacha Dennehy, Claire Chase, and Nadia Sirota.

JACK has performed to critical acclaim at Carnegie Hall (USA), Lincoln Center (USA), Berlin Philharmonie (Germany), Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Muziekgebouw (Netherlands), The Louvre (France), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Suntory Hall (Japan), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), and Teatro Colón (Argentina). Among their honors, they have earned an Avery Fisher Career Grant and Fromm Music Foundation Prize; been selected as Musical America's 2018 "Ensemble of the Year; and received Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA's Trailblazer Award, and the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.

According to Musical America, "many of their recordings are must-haves, for anyone interested in new music." They have been nominated for multiple GRAMMY Awards, the most recent being their albums of music by John Luther Adams - nominated in the 2022 and 2023 Best Ensemble Performance category. Other albums include music by Helmut Lachenmann, Catherine Lamb, Du Yun, Elliott Sharp, Zosha di Castri, Iannis Xenakis, and an upcoming release of the complete quartets of Elliott Carter.

The JACK Quartet makes its home in New York City, where it is the Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music at The New School and provides mentorship to Mannes's Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet. They also teach each summer at New Music on the Point, a contemporary chamber music festival in Vermont for young performers and composers, and at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. JACK has long-standing relationships with the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program, where they teach and collaborate with students each fall and spring, as well as with the Lucerne Festival Academy, of which the four members are all alumni. Learn more at www.jackquartet.com.

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is celebrated for his extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work, while also offering incomparable virtuosity, and effortless mastery of highly complex scores. He has performed globally with his own ensembles, as well as alongside industry titans including John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Joe Lovano, Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, King Britt, Claire Chase, Roscoe Mitchell, and Steve Lehman, among many others.

As a 2017 MacArthur Fellow and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow, the bar is set high for Sorey's continued evolution and success. His composition Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) was honored as a Finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music, and has been recorded with the Houston Chamber Choir and DaCamera for release in 2024. Adding to his reputation as a multi-faceted talent, Downbeat Magazine recently recognized Sorey with its 2023 Critics Poll Award as a Rising Star Producer, while frequently placing him near the top of its Composer and Drum Set performance lists. Other recent accolades include the Fromm Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters' Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, and the Koussevitzsky Prize.

Sorey has composed works for the International Contemporary Ensemble, Talea Ensemble, soprano Julia Bullock, PRISM Quartet, JACK Quartet, TAK Ensemble, cellist Seth Parker Woods, the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, bass-baritone Davóne Tines, Alarm Will Sound, pianist Awadagin Pratt and vocal group Roomful of Teeth, violinist Johnny Gandelsman, and tenor Lawrence Brownlee, as well as for countless collaborative performers. His music has been performed in notable venues such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall, The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Hollywood Bowl, the 92nd Street Y, Park Avenue Armory, the Donaueschinger Musiktage, Lucerne Festival, and the Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. His compositions are published by Edition Peters.

Sorey joined the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in the Fall of 2020, where he maintains a vigorous touring schedule in addition to his academic duties. He was selected as a Peabody Resident at Johns Hopkins University for Fall 2023, and has taught and lectured on composition and improvisation at an impressive assortment of institutions, including: Columbia University, Harvard University, Darmstadter Ferienkurse, Wesleyan University, The New England Conservatory, University of Michigan, The Banff Centre, Berklee College of Music, Mills College, University of Chicago, and The Danish Rhythmic Conservatory.

2023/24 Tisch Music Season

Working within 92NY's 150th Anniversary theme, Inspired by the Past, Transforming for the Future, 92NY's Vice President, Tisch Music's Amy Lam has curated a season featuring newly commissioned works and premieres and artist-driven programs that reference the history of 92NY, the artists themselves, and music more broadly. Some of the featured works at 92NY include the world premiere of a new, interdisciplinary project by Cécile McLorin Salvant, in which Salvant mines her classical music training to transform Baroque songs through a jazz-focused lens, the New York premiere of Damien Geter's COTTON, which explores an African American narrative of past and present performed by Denyce Graves and Justin Austin, and a new program from Broadway legend Audra McDonald, who takes the stage with a program inspired by her Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Award-winning 30-year career.

Building on the theme of transformation, 11 of this season's 42 concerts will be presented in 92NY's newly renovated and creatively flexible Buttenwieser Hall at The Arnhold Center. In its Buttenwieser Hall programs, Tisch Music will continue to expand on-site audience engagement in new and exciting ways. As it continues to build its global audience (having secured approximately 5 million views from 200 countries and all 50 states for its original programming across the institution last year), 92NY will maintain its commitment to making its offerings available globally, with more than 20 events available for streaming and on-demand viewing.

The 2023/24 Tisch Music Season builds on the recent success of its Midsummer MusicFest, launched this year in celebration of 92NY's 150th Anniversary. Consistent with 92NY's anniversary theme, the annual Festival will look back on 92NY's musical history, with 2023's festival inspired by 92NY's role in bringing jazz from small clubs to a concert hall setting. The Season also continues the evolution of Tisch Music's flagship Lyrics & Lyricists series, doubling the American Songbook offerings and focusing on the genre as defined, not only by Broadway, but in the many genres of American music found across the country.

Highlights of the 2023/24 Tisch Music Season include:

· Joshua Redman Group release concert of where are we featuring Gabrielle Cavassa

· NY premieres of new work by Tyshawn Sorey and COTTON by composer Damien Geter

· New York concert debuts of the Isidore String Quartet and pianist Tony Siqi Yun

· Pianist Conrad Tao returns to 92NY as part of the global celebration of Rachmaninoff at 150

· Ongoing partnerships continue with concerts from the Curtis Institute of Music, the New York Philharmonic, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra with special guest artists

· Art of the Guitar Series with Beijing Guitar Duo, David Russell and Manuel Barrueco

· 2023/24 Lyrics & Lyricists series celebrating Howard Ashman, Laura Nyro, Stevie Wonder, andSheldon Harnick in a special event led by Ted Sperling honoring the legacy of three-time Tony Award winner and Broadway legend, Jason Robert Brown, featuring a one-night-only appearance.

· Expanded American Songbook offerings including exclusive concerts by Audra McDonald, Joshua Henry and Stephanie J. Block

For more information, please visit 92NY.org/Concerts.

About The 92nd Street Y, New York: The 92nd Street Y, New York (92NY) is a world-class center for the arts and innovation, a convener of ideas, and an incubator for creativity. 92NY offers extensive classes, courses and events online including live concerts, talks and master classes; fitness classes for all ages; 250+ art classes, and parenting workshops for new moms and dads. The 92nd Street Y, New York is transforming the way people share ideas and translate them into action all over the world. All of 92NY's programming is built on a foundation of Jewish values, including the capacity of civil dialogue to change minds; the potential of education and the arts to change lives; and a commitment to welcoming and serving people of all ages, races, religions, and ethnicities. For more information, visit www.92NY.org.