Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet
The Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet program at Mannes School of Music provides a highly qualified pre-professional or professional string quartet with an immersive two-year residency at Mannes School of Music and the invaluable opportunity to be mentored by the Mannes string quartet-in-residence, JACK Quartet.
The members of the Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet are admitted to the Professional Studies Diploma (PDPL) program at Mannes School of Music, a two-year program consisting of major lessons, performance opportunities, and electives. Each quartet member receives a full-tuition scholarship and an annual stipend of $8,000.
The Graduate String Quartet receives unique performance opportunities and provides service to The New School through a variety of performances and engagements. These may include appearances at the Mannes Sounds Festival; workshops and readings of new works by Composition faculty and students; teaching and master class opportunities at Mannes Prep; appearances with The Mannes Orchestra, Mannes American Composers Ensemble, and Mannes Opera; and performances at special events such as the Parsons Gala.
The Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet was launched in 2020 and is made possible through the generous support of the Cuker and Stern Scholarship Fund, honoring the legacy of Harold B. and Ruth (Cuker) Stern.
Applications for the Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet Professional Studies Diploma program are available every other year. The next application cycle will begin in fall 2023 for entry in fall 2024.
Ensembles interested in applying should contact William Gustafson, associate dean for Academic Affairs, at [email protected].
About the JACK Quartet
Undeniably our generation’s “leading new-music foursome,” the GRAMMY®-nominated JACK Quartet’s “stylistic range, precision and passion have made the group one of contemporary music’s indispensable ensembles” (New York Times). Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK celebrates their landmark 20th anniversary season in 2024-2025. Through long-standing relationships with many of today’s most creative voices, JACK Quartet has a prolific commissioning and recording catalog, has been nominated for three GRAMMY® Awards, and is the 2024 recipient of Chamber Music America’s Michael Jaffee Visionary Award.
Highlights of the 2024–2025 season include JACK Quartet's 20th-anniversary celebratory concert at 92NY, featuring the world premiere of a new JACK-commissioned work by Anthony Cheung; the U.S. premiere of the JACK-commissioned Three Imaginary Chansons, composed by Juri Seo, at Lincoln Center; and the world premiere of Ellen Fullman’s Energy Archive at the Beyond: Microtonal Music Festival 2025 in Pittsburgh. In addition, JACK Quartet celebrates their long association with composer John Zorn with the release of his complete string quartets on Tzadik Records and an album release concert at Brooklyn’s Roulette Intermedium. The quartet's international engagements include its annual marathon of performances at Wigmore Hall in the UK and appearances at Pierre Boulez Saal and Konzerthaus Berlin in Germany and in Toronto, Barcelona, and Lugano and Winterthur, Switzerland.
JACK Quartet has performed to critical acclaim at venues such as Carnegie Hall (United States), Lincoln Center (United States), Berlin Philharmonie (Germany), Wigmore Hall (United Kingdom), Muziekgebouw (the Netherlands), The Louvre (France), Kölner Philharmonie (Germany), the Lucerne Festival (Switzerland), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Suntory Hall (Japan), Bali Arts Festival (Indonesia), Festival Internacional Cervantino (Mexico), Teatro Colón (Argentina), and many others. Their honors include an Avery Fisher Career Grant, a Fromm Music Foundation Prize, naming as Musical America’s 2018 Ensemble of the Year, Lincoln Center's Martin E. Segal Award, New Music USA's Trailblazer Award, and the CMA/ASCAP Award for Adventurous Programming.
Recognizing that the social, cultural, and economic conditions of institutional access unfairly exclude many people, JACK Studio offers composers paid opportunities to develop new work, hear their music performed by the quartet, consult with mentors in the field, and receive recorded documentation. JACK Studio receives hundreds of applications each season and selects up to 15 composers or artists for two opportunities: Two-Year Residencies, offering a longer-term relationship with the quartet, and Reading Sessions, in which recipients have existing works for string quartet read by JACK Quartet. More than 40 composers have worked with JACK Quartet through JACK Studio thus far, hailing from Argentina, Belarus, Canada, Germany, Malaysia, Mexico, Myanmar, South Africa, Syria, and the United States.
JACK Quartet makes their home in New York City, where they are the quartet-in-residence at Mannes School of Music and provide mentorship to Mannes’s Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet. They also teach each summer at New Music on the Point, a contemporary chamber music festival in Vermont for young performers and composers. JACK Quartet has a long-standing relationship with the University of Iowa String Quartet Residency Program, in which they teach and collaborate with students each fall and spring. (Learn more at jackquartet.com.)
About the Orange Road Quartet (2024–2026 Cuker and Stern Graduate String Quartet)
Dedicated to the performance of new works and modern classics, Orange Road collaborates with composers to develop programs connecting art and audiences beyond the traditional elite-dominated concert hall, providing people of all backgrounds with transformative musical experiences. In recent years, Orange Road has been featured twice as an ensemble in residence at The Cortona Sessions for New Music, bringing cutting-edge programs of premieres and modern masterpieces by composers ranging from Xenakis to John Luther Adams to audiences in Italy and the Netherlands. Orange Road is currently in the midst of their 2024–2025 concert season, which has included performances in New York City and Europe, with more on the horizon at The Southern Exposure Series at the University of South Carolina and residencies at the University of Florida and the University of California, Davis, and more than 15 premieres to take place over the next few months.
Orange Road began as The New Sounds Quartet in Residence at the University of South Carolina in 2021, where they received mentorship from Ari Streisfeld, a founding member of JACK Quartet. The current members are Miguel Calleja and Holly Workman on violin, Nicky Moore on viola, and Jordan Bartow on cello. Orange Road's members have careers as international soloists and interdisciplinary artists and hold a number of chairs in regional orchestras.