Graduate Quartet-in-Residence

Each year, a young and rising string quartet takes up residence at the Yale School of Music to study with the Tokyo String Quartet. The graduate quartet-in-residence for 2008-09 is the Jasper Quartet, who arrived at Yale fresh from winning four of chamber music's most prestigious prizes — the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2008 Plowman Chamber Music Competition, the Grand Prize at the 2008 Coleman Competition, First Prize at Chamber Music Yellow Springs 2008, and the Silver Medal at the 2008 Fischoff Chamber Music Competition.

Formed at Oberlin Conservatory in 2003, the Jasper String Quartet recently graduated from Rice University's graduate quartet program, where they studied with James Dunham, Norman Fischer and Kenneth Goldsmith. The quartet has performed across the United States and in Canada, Norway and Italy. They are dedicated to presenting contemporary music and standard repertoire to a broad audience and have collaborated with musicians, composers, dancers, and visual artists.

The Jaspers attended the Aspen Music Festival's Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, the Emerson Quartet International Chamber Music Workshop, the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. As representatives of the 9th Banff International Quartet Competition, they embarked on "guerilla chamber music," performing concerts in unusual settings around Alberta. During their time at the Shepherd School of Music, the quartet collaborated with the Houston Friends of Chamber Music to bring quartet programs into local high schools. Currently at Yale, the quartet is active coaching undergraduate chamber music ensembles.

This season the Jaspers look forward to collaborations with clarinetists David Shifrin and Gilad Harel. They will perform with Mr. Shifrin at Carnegie’s Weill Recital Hall and with Mr. Harel in their return to the Brooklyn Friends of Chamber Music Series playing Mozart Clarinet Quintet and Golijov The Dreams and Prayers of Isaac the Blind, respectively. The quartet is also continually active in major international quartet competitions. The Jasper String Quartet is named for Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada.

Previous graduate quartets-in-residence include the Alianza Quartet and the Biava Quartet.