Jasper String Quartet
Winner of the 2012 Cleveland Quartet Award, the Jasper String Quartet has enjoyed
prestigious appointments, such as 2010-2012 quartet-in-residence at Oberlin Conservatory
and ensemble-in-residence at Classic Chamber Concerts. The quartet has been awarded, in
conjunction with Astral Artists of Pennsylvania, a 2012 grant through Chamber Music
America's Residency Partnership Program.
After winning the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize in the 2008 Plowman Chamber Music
Competition, the Jasper String Quartet went on to win the Grand Prize at the 2008 Coleman
Competition, First Prize at the 2008 Chamber Music Yellow Springs competition, and the
Silver Medal at the 2008 and 2009 Fischoff National Chamber Music Association competitions.
It was the first ensemble to win the Yale School of Music's Horatio Parker Memorial Prize
(2009), and in 2010, it joined the roster of Astral Artists after winning the
organization's national auditions.
The ensemble performs pieces that are emotionally significant to its members, ranging from
Haydn and Beethoven to Berg, Ligeti, and living composers. It has already commissioned four
string quartets from today's up-and-coming composers. The quartet performs throughout the
US, Canada, England, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, and Panama.
Based in New Haven, Connecticut, the Jasper String Quartet has also brought well over 100
outreach programs into schools and enjoys educational work of all types. During its Melba
and Orville Rollefson Residency at The Banff Centre, the quartet members embarked on
"guerilla chamber music," performing concerts in unusual settings around Alberta, Canada.
It recently completed its 2009-2011 Ernst C. Stiefel String Quartet Residency at the
Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts, with whom it worked closely along with Astral
Artists to bring outreach activities to schools.
Originally formed at Oberlin Conservatory, the members of the Jasper String Quartet began
pursuing a professional career in 2006 when they studied 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 quartet is named after Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada.
Visit jasperquartet.com for more information.