Feb. 6: The Jupiter Quartet Presented by Krannert Center in Third Series Concert Featuring Guest Pianist Soyeon Kate Lee
Photo of the Jupiter Quartet by Todd Rosenberg available in high resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/jupiter-string
The Jupiter String Quartet
Presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts
in Third Series Concert
Featuring Guest Pianist Soyeon Kate Lee
Performing Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Béla Bartók, and Johannes Brahms
Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 7:30pm
University of Illinois | Foellinger Great Hall
500 S Goodwin Ave. | Urbana, IL
Tickets and Information at
https://krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-soyeon-kate-lee-piano
“technical finesse and rare expressive maturity”
– The New Yorker
www.jupiterquartet.com | www.SoyeonKateLee.com
Urbana, IL – The Jupiter String Quartet –– the quartet-in-residence at the University of Illinois since 2012 and internationally acclaimed winners of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and the Banff International String Quartet Competition –– continues their 2023-2024 concert series presented by Krannert Center for the Performing Arts in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S. Goodwin Ave) on Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 7:30pm, performing together with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee.
The Jupiter Quartet will perform a program of works by composers at the height of their creative powers: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quartet K. 575, Béla Bartók’s Quartet No. 6 (1939), and the Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 by Johannes Brahms (1864).
Based in Urbana and giving concerts all over the country, the Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Brought together by ties both familial and musical, the Jupiter Quartet has been performing together since 2001. Exuding an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous, the Quartet celebrates every opportunity to bring their close-knit and lively style to audiences.Their connections to each other and the length of time they’ve shared the stage always shine through in their intuitive performances.
The Jupiter Quartet says of performing with Soyeon Kate Lee:
“We are very excited to bring the wonderful pianist Soyeon Kate Lee to the University of Illinois campus. We have enjoyed teaching side by side with her at the Bowdoin International Music Festival for several summers, and are always amazed by her sensitive musicality and formidable technique in the many performances we have witnessed there. The Krannert audience is in for a real treat.”
Mozart wrote his Quartet in D Major, K. 575, as part of a set of three composed in the final period of his life. Professionally and financially he was struggling, but this quartet in particular is full of joy and beauty, with all four voices of the quartet actively engaged. Bartok’s sixth quartet similarly comes from the closing years of of his life and features a composer very comfortable with the demands of writing for the string quartet medium. The quartet was conceived during the second world war as he struggled to deal both with the turmoil in his homeland of Hungary and his mother’s acute illness. He eventually fled to the United States after his mother’s death. Initially, Brahms composed his popular four movement Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 as a string quintet meant to include two cellos. From there, the piece came to be altered into a sonata for two pianos, and eventually took on a final arrangement as a piano quintet. The work is dedicated to Princess Anna of Hesse.
More About Jupiter String Quartet: The Jupiter Quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City's Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Caramoor International Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Chamber Music Festival, the Banff Centre, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.
Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two.
The Jupiter String Quartet feels a strong connection to the core string quartet repertoire; they have presented the complete Bartok and Beethoven string quartets on numerous occasions. Also deeply committed to new music, they have commissioned string quartets from Nathan Shields, Stephen Andrew Taylor, Michi Wiancko, Syd Hodkinson, Hannah Lash, Dan Visconti, and Kati Agócs; a quintet with baritone voice by Mark Adamo; and a piano quintet by Pierre Jalbert.
The quartet's latest album is a collaboration with the Jasper String Quartet (Marquis Classics, 2021), produced by Grammy-winner Judith Sherman. This collaborative album features the world premiere recording of Dan Visconti’s Eternal Breath, Felix Mendelssohn’s Octet in E-flat, Op. 20, and Osvaldo Golijov’s Last Round. The Arts Fuse acclaimed, “This joint album from the Jupiter String Quartet and Jasper String Quartet is striking for its backstory but really memorable for its smart program and fine execution.” The quartet’s discography also includes numerous recordings on labels including Azica Records and Deutsche Grammophon.
Highlights of the Jupiter Quartet’s 2023-24 season include performances presented by Music at Kohl Mansion, San Antonio Chamber Music Society, Camerata Musica, UNLV Chamber Music Series, and Feldman Chamber Music Society and Chamber Music Society of Williamsburg with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee, as well as residencies at San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the University of Idaho as part of the Auditorium Chamber Music Series. As artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Champaign-Urbana, they also perform a series of concerts at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.
The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four.
About Soyeon Kate Lee: First prize winner of the Naumburg International Piano Competition and the Concert Artist Guild International Competition, Korean-American pianist Soyeon Kate Lee has been lauded by The New York Times as a pianist with "a huge, richly varied sound, a lively imagination and a firm sense of style," and by the Washington Post for her "stunning command of the keyboard.”
Highlights of recent seasons include appearances at the National Gallery, Library of Congress, Gina Bachauer Concerts, Purdue Convocations, Music@Menlo, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center on tour, San Francisco Performances, Camerata Pacifica tour, Chamber Music Chicago, and the Cleveland Art Museum. She was a member of Lincoln Center Chamber Music Society’s Bowers program, and is a regular participant in numerous chamber music festivals including the Great Lakes, Santa Fe and Music Mountain Chamber Music Festivals. Ms. Lee has collaborated with conductors Carlos Miguel Prieto, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Jahja Ling, and Jorge Mester with the London, San Diego, Hawaii, Louisiana, Naples symphony orchestras among others.
She has commissioned works by prominent composers and has given world premieres of works written by Frederic Rzewski, Marc-André Hamelin, Alexander Goehr, Gabriela Lena Frank, Texu Kim, and Huang Ruo.
As a Naxos recording artist, her discography spans a wide range of repertoire from two volumes of Scarlatti Sonatas, Liszt Opera Transcriptions, two volumes of Scriabin, and Clementi Sonatas. Ms. Lee’s recording of Re!nvented under the E1/Entertainment One (formerly Koch Classics) label garnered her a feature review in the Gramophone Magazine and the Classical Recording Foundation’s Young Artist of the Year Award.
A second prize and Mozart Prize winner of the 2003 Cleveland International Piano Competition and a laureate of the Santander International Piano Competition in Spain, Ms. Lee has worked extensively with Richard Goode, Robert McDonald, Ursula Oppens, and Jerome Lowenthal. A graduate of The Juilliard School, Ms. Lee was awarded the William Petschek Piano Debut Award at Lincoln Center and the Arthur Rubinstein Award and received her Doctor of Musical Arts from The Graduate Center, City University of New York.
In 2022, Soyeon Kate Lee joined the piano faculty at the Juilliard School, and serves on the piano faculty at the Bowdoin International Music Festival during the summers. She resides in New York with her husband, pianist Ran Dank, and their two children, Noah and Ella.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: The Jupiter Quartet, the Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign which The New Yorker describes as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity,” is presented by Krannert Center for a performance with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee in Foellinger Great Hall (500 S Goodwin Ave.). The ensemble will perform a bold and stylistically diverse concert program, featuring Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Quartet No. 21 K. 575 (1789), Béla Bartók’s Quartet No. 6 (1939), and Piano Quintet in F Minor, Op. 34 by Johannes Brahms (1864), which the Quartet will perform with guest pianist, Soyeon Kate Lee.
Short description: The Jupiter Quartet, who are described as “an ensemble of eloquent intensity” (The New Yorker), is presented by Krannert Center for a performance with pianist Soyeon Kate Lee featuring the music of Michi Wiancko, Béla Bartók, and Johannes Brahms.
Concert details:
Who: Jupiter String Quartet and pianist Soyeon Kate Lee
Presented by Krannert Center
What: Music by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Bela Bartók, and Johannes Brahms
When: Tuesday, February 6, 2024 at 7:30pm
Where: University of Illinois, Krannert Center, Foellinger Great Hall, 500 S Goodwin Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
Tickets and information: www.krannertcenter.com/events/jupiter-string-quartet-soyeon-kate-lee-piano