JACK Quartet to Release First-Ever Recording Of John Zorn's Complete String Quartets

The GRAMMY-nominated JACK Quartet will continue to celebrate its 20th anniversary season with the release of composer and frequent collaborator John Zorn's complete string quartets on a 2-CD set out on Tzadik Records on January 17, 2025. Comprised of violinist Christopher Otto, violinist Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK's The Complete String Quartets features eight John Zorn quartets, with the last two quartets, The Remedy of Fortune (2015) and The Unseen (2017), composed with JACK in mind.

JACK celebrates the album's release with a concert at Roulette Intermedium in Brooklyn, NY featuring Zorn's Memento Mori and Necronomicon and featuring special guest Ikue Mori on Friday, January 17, 2025 at 8:00 pm.

JACK has a long and fruitful relationship with American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger, and producer John Zorn that goes back to 2007 and continues to this day. Passionate and dedicated supporters of his work, JACK has been involved in close to 100 performances of Zorn's compositions in major venues all over the world.

Composed from 1988 to 2017-a time span of about thirty years-each composition in The Complete String Quartets is a distinctive world of its own. The musical language across the eight pieces grows and expands as the years go by, and the techniques required to perform the music shift, morph, and deepen in a variety of ways. Of the album, John Zorn says, "The string quartet format is very dear to my heart-Bartók, Webern, and Carter being among my personal favorites. It has always been a dream to create a catalog of pieces for string quartet that could stand alongside these masterpieces-and on hearing these astounding recordings that the formidable JACK Quartet has made of my eight quartets it feels like I might have accomplished that goal. Challenging, idiosyncratic, but with a profound connection to tradition, this is a uniquely compelling body of work."

In addition, the album's release will be celebrated at a performance of John Zorn's Memento Mori and Necronomicon on Friday, January 17, 2025 at 8:00pm at Roulette. Consisting of two of Zorn's greatest masterpieces, the concert includes Memento Mori, which features Ikue Mori as a guest soloist, improvising her signature live electronics alongside JACK Quartet's dynamic interpretation of this vexing and emotional work; and the challenging Necronomicon, which marks Zorn's triumphant return to the string quartet medium after a ten-year hiatus. The album will be available for purchase at the performance.

Cat O'Nine Tails (1988) is a freewheeling tribute to many of Zorn's musical heroes and sets the stage for the surprising poetics of Zorn's "fast-moving quicksilver block-form systems."

The Dead Man (1990) was inspired by the short novel by Georges Bataille, and fuses hardcore punk energy with the precision of Webern's Bagatelle miniatures.

Inspired by Alban Berg's Lyric Suite and dedicated to Ikue Mori, Memento Mori (1992) is the most rigorous of the quartets, utilizing a strange hermetic language that unfolds slowly over the course of twenty-five minutes, filled with hidden messages, deep lyricism, and microtones.

Kol Nidre (1996), originally from the Masada songbook, is a kind of prayer and has been arranged for string quartet, string orchestra, and clarinet quartet.

Necronomicon (2003) was composed after the violin concerto Contes de Feés (1999) and Goetia (2002) for solo violin. Zorn says, "A subtle tribute to one of my very favorite string quartets-Bartok's 4th-it stretches classical string techniques to the breaking point." In five movements, this piece draws upon hermeticism, alchemy, magick, mysticism, and more, portraying a sense of avant-garde musical theater.

The Alchemist (2011) is described by Zorn as "a miracle, almost an impossibility-a quartet written after Necronomicon," and it explores some startling new places, including a few fleeting references to Beethoven's Grosse Fugue.

The Remedy of Fortune (2015) is a beautiful piece influenced by one of Zorn's first loves-medieval music. Zorn remarks that it "trades my trademark tritones for open fifths. The subtitle confirms that this is a romantic work, filled with intense emotion and heartbreak."

The Unseen (2017) was inspired by the philosophies and spiritual art of Hilma af Klint, and premiered at the Guggenheim Museum during their huge retrospective of her work in 2018. "This could be the last string quartet I will ever compose," Zorn adds.

The Complete String Quartets Tracklist:

Disc 1

1. John Zorn - Cat O'Nine Tails (1988) - [13:17]
2. John Zorn - The Dead Man (1990) - [11:22]
3. John Zorn - Memento Mori (1992) - [24:37]
4. John Zorn - Kol Nidre (1996) - [6:27]

Disc 2

5. John Zorn - Necronomicon (2003) - [20:05]
6. John Zorn - The Alchemist (2011) - [19:40]
7. John Zorn - The Remedy of Fortune (2015) - [14:53]
8. John Zorn - The Unseen (2017) - [13:22]

Total Time: 02:03:43

Christoper Otto, violin
Austin Wulliman, violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, cello

Produced by JACK Quartet and Ryan Streber
Executive Producer: John Zorn
Associate Producer: Kazunori Sugiyama
Recorded, edited, and mixed 2023 at Oktaven, Mount Vernon, NY by Ryan Streber
Mastering by Scott Hull
John Zorn obi/booklet portrait by Mathieu Amalric
JACK Quartet digi and booklet cover portraits by Shervin Lainez
Score photos and JACK Quartet portrait drawings by John Zorn
Design by Chippy (Heung-Heung Chin)
Special thanks to Alex Mony

Program Information:
Friday, January 17, 2025 at 8:00PM
JACK Quartet Plays John Zorn's Memento Mori and Necronomicon
Roulette Intermedium | Brooklyn, NY
Link: https://roulette.org/event/jack-quartet-plays-john-zorn-with-mori/
Tickets: $30 advance, $35 doors, $25 Student/Senior (w/ ID, Senior 65+), doors open at 7pm

Program:
John Zorn - MEMENTO MORI (1992)
with Ikue Mori, electronics

John Zorn - NECRONOMICON (2003)
I Conjurations
II The Magus
III Thought-Forms
IV Incunabula
V Asmodeus

Christopher Otto, violin
Austin Wulliman, violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Jay Campbell, cello
Ikue Mori, electronics

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