“Exciting…” —THE NEW YORKER

“LOVE IT” —NEWSWEEK

“A dynamic collective…” —THE NEW YORK TIMES

“A brash, buoyant combo…” —TIME OUT NEW YORK

“…A group that has created one of the most compelling recordings of the year….[Respect] plays with a stellar blend of precision and humor.” —THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

“[Respect] challenges and instigates. It delightfully confounds. This is world-class American jazz at its finest and freest. It’s pure truth. Respect the truth.” —CITY NEWSPAPER



FORMED IN 2001, The Respect Sextet is a powerhouse ensemble dedicated to performing a wide variety of improvisational musics. Relying on their explosive energy, rare telepathy, outstanding musicianship, and a deep friendship, Respect pieces together free improvisations, original compositions, free jazz classics, television commercial jingles, text pieces, jazz standards, game pieces and more into “a whirling collage,” shouts Exclaim! Magazine, “that ransacks and reshapes the entire jazz tradition, from New Orleans march to Misha Mengelberg, Sun Ra to Charlie Parker.” Named “one of the best and most ambitious new ensembles in jazz” by Signal to Noise,

The Respect Sextet continues—after nearly a decade as a collective—to fearlessly push the envelope.

Respect’s newest release, Sirius Respect: The Respect Sextet play the music of Sun Ra & Stockhausen, (Mode/Avant, 2009), was called “one of the most compelling recordings of the year” by the Wall Street Journal and filed under “Love It” in Newsweek Magazine (“an out-of-this-world pairing”). Sirius Respect brings together the music of Sun Ra and Karlheinz Stockhausen and views them through Respect-colored glasses. Pieces ranging from Stockhausen’s “Tierkreis” (inspired by the Zodiac) to Sun Ra’s “Saturn” are juxtaposed, layered, deconstructed and re-assembled. “It’s neither jazz nor classical,” says John Schaefer of WNYC’s Soundcheck, “but something cosmically both.”

The group comprises Eli Asher (trumpet, toys), James Hirschfeld (trombone, jamespectronics, toys), Malcolm Kirby (bass), Ted Poor (drums), Josh Rutner (reeds, radio, toys), and Red Wierenga (piano, keyboard, accordion, redspectronics).

Through its eclecticism, humor, devotion to improvisation, predilection towards swing, and its use of toys and “little instruments,” The Respect Sextet has drawn comparisons both to New Dutch Swing and the AACM. Many dialectics are at work (and play) in Respect’s world, in which the serious, heady, and intellectual mingle with the light, comic, and absurd, where compositions alternate and mesh with improvisations, and where tight ensemble work coexists with loose, empathic interplay.



Listen: The Respect Sextet, "In the Shadow of My Bier"


Listen: I Want To Be Asher

JACK Quartet is breaking new ground with "viscerally exciting performances" (New York Times) of "explosive virtuosity" (Boston Globe). Alex Ross (New Yorker) proclaimed their performance of Iannis Xenakis' complete string quartets as being "exceptional" and "beautifully harsh," and Mark Swed (Los Angeles Times) called their sold-out performances of Georg Friedrich Haas' String Quartet No. 3 In iij. Noct. "mind-blowingly good." JACK's recording of Xenakis' complete string quartets appeared on "Best Of" lists from the Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, New Yorker, NPR, and Time Out New York as "one of 2009's most impressive recordings." The quartet has recently performed to critical acclaim at the Library of Congress, Miller Theatre, Morgan Library, and Kimmel Center with upcoming performances at the Darmstadt Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik (Germany), Garth Newel Music Center, Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Netherlands), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Ultraschall Festival für neue Musik (Germany), Wigmore Hall (UK), and the Arcana Festival (Austria).

Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Ari Streisfeld, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Kevin McFarland, the JACK Quartet is focused on the commissioning and performance of new works, leading them to work closely with composers Helmut Lachenmann, György Kurtág, Matthias Pintscher, Toshio Hosokawa, Wolfgang Rihm, Elliott Sharp, Beat Furrer, Caleb Burhans, and Aaron Cassidy.

The quartet has recently performed to critical acclaim at the Library of Congress, Miller Theatre, Morgan Library, and Kimmel Center with upcoming performances at the Garth Newel Music Center, Donaueschinger Musiktage (Germany), Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ (Netherlands), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Ultraschall Festival für neue Musik (Germany), Wigmore Hall (UK), and the Arcana Festival (Austria). Other upcoming appearances include Town Hall Seattle, multiple performances in Los Angeles, Huntsville Chamber Music Guild, the 10th Annual Cal State Fullerton New Music Festival: Strings of the 21st Century and in France at the festival "Flâneries de Reims."

JACK has led workshops with young composers at Columbia University, New York University, Northwestern University, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Victoria, the University of Iowa, and the University of Washington. In addition to working with composers and performers, the JACK Quartet seeks to broaden and diversify the potential audience for new music through educational presentations designed for a variety of ages, backgrounds, and levels of musical experience.

The members of the quartet met while attending the Eastman School of Music, and they have since studied with the Arditti Quartet, Kronos Quartet, Muir String Quartet, and members of the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Please note that Christopher Otto is on paternal leave and will be replaced by Caleb Burhans for this performance.

Ari Streisfeld, violin
Caleb Burhans, violin
John Pickford Richards, viola
Kevin McFarland, cello

JackQuartet.com