The News From Utopia is the title of violinist Austin Wulliman‘s debut release as composer. This concert presents and celebrates the premiere of seven works by Wulliman, including the adaptations of the News. The News From Utopia is a solo project built from multi-tracked layers that Wulliman composed, recorded and mixed. The live experience will incorporate electronics built of samples from the album as well as live performances from JACK Quartet and a video premiere by Argentinian multimedia artist Iván Decoud on the track BLINK. Additionally, the concert includes the US Premiere of Wulliman’s Down Pat for electric guitar and electronics, written for the unique talents of guitarist and improviser Alec Goldfarb.
The News From Utopia is built from a web of musical conspiracy theories that coalesce into imagery and a nonlinear network of narratives. A field of pixels comes into focus, a series of images scroll past your phone screen, a dark veil falls over the noonday sun, a desert nightscape melts into the sea roiling with whitecaps and you wake up with your heart racing, eyes wide. Down Pat tunes the guitar to the electrical ground, using a MIDI interface to control an extended ratio-based tuning system. 50 hz, 60 hz, 440 hz and an increasing concatenation of 11s and 5s and 3s build a network of polyrhythm, harmony, and scalar logics. The Late Edition and Lost One dive into Wulliman’s musical relationship with his bandmates, wrangling the material built for this recording project into newly imagined works for live players unfolding webs of rhythmic and harmonic ratios.
SYSTEM NOTES (2023) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
BLINK (2022) – World Premiere for string quartet, electric guitar and electronics
Down Pat (2023) – US Premiere for electric guitar and electronics -Alec Goldfarb, guitar
The Late Edition (2023) – World Premiere for string quartet
Lost One (2024) — World Premiere for string quartet
The Docks (2022) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
como se vive (ii) (2023) — World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
The News From Utopia (ii) (2024) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
Austin Wulliman violin Alec Goldfarb guitar
JACK Quartet: Christopher Otto violin John Pickford Richards viola Jay Campbell cello
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.
Praised as a “gifted, adventuresome violinist” by the Chicago Tribune, Austin Wulliman is widely known for his role with the JACK Quartet, called “America’s most important string quartet” by the New York Times. With JACK, he has performed worldwide at such venues at the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and collaborated with such luminaries as Barbara Hannigan, Igor Levit, John Luther Adams, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Philip Glass and a host of composers and performers. During his tenure, the quartet has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2018 and 2019 Ensemble of the Year Award from Musical America, among other honors. He first forged his reputation in Chicago with the collective Ensemble Dal Niente, serving as the group’s Program Director, and winning the Kranichstein Music Prize at the Darmstadt Summer Course in 2012. Austin was also a founding member of Spektral Quartet, serving on faculty at the University of Chicago from 2011-2016. Consistently in search of new musical pathways through ensemble work, Austin has collaborated with a wide range of musical voices, from artists like Deerhoof and Billy Childs to Julia Wolfe and Kaija Saariaho. Furthermore, he has also been a guest artist with groups such as Eighth Blackbird, The Knights, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNow Ensemble. Austin serves on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music, where JACK is Quartet in Residence.
Hailed by The New York Times as “our leading new-music foursome,” JACK Quartet is synchronized in its mission to create an international community through transformative, mind-broadening experiences and close listening. Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK was founded in 2005 and operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and appreciation of 20th and 21st century string quartet music. JACK has a prolific commissioning and recording catalog and has been nominated for three GRAMMY Awards. JACK’s all-access initiative JACK Studio funds collaborations with a selection of artists each year to develop new works for string quartet. Through its successful nonprofit model, the quartet has created hundreds of new works, and the world’s top composers choose JACK because of its dedication to innovation. JACK’s albums of music by John Luther Adams were nominated for GRAMMY Awards in both 2022 and 2023. Previous albums include music by Helmut Lachenmann, Catherine Lamb, Du Yun, Elliott Sharp, Zosha di Castri, and Iannis Xenakis. The JACK Quartet makes its home in NYC, where it is the Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music.
Alec Goldfarb is a Brooklyn based guitarist, composer, and Hindustani classical musician. Active in the NYC jazz and new music communities, his work explores musical traits as historical vestiges of migrations, colonialism, geographies, labor, ritual. An exponent of the Seniya-Maihar Gharana, Alec performs Hindustani classical music across the globe on the guitar using a novel synthesis of sarod and sitar technique.
The News From Utopia is the title of violinist Austin Wulliman‘s debut release as composer. This concert presents and celebrates the premiere of seven works by Wulliman, including the adaptations of the News. The News From Utopia is a solo project built from multi-tracked layers that Wulliman composed, recorded and mixed. The live experience will incorporate electronics built of samples from the album as well as live performances from JACK Quartet and a video premiere by Argentinian multimedia artist Iván Decoud on the track BLINK. Additionally, the concert includes the US Premiere of Wulliman’s Down Pat for electric guitar and electronics, written for the unique talents of guitarist and improviser Alec Goldfarb.
The News From Utopia is built from a web of musical conspiracy theories that coalesce into imagery and a nonlinear network of narratives. A field of pixels comes into focus, a series of images scroll past your phone screen, a dark veil falls over the noonday sun, a desert nightscape melts into the sea roiling with whitecaps and you wake up with your heart racing, eyes wide. Down Pat tunes the guitar to the electrical ground, using a MIDI interface to control an extended ratio-based tuning system. 50 hz, 60 hz, 440 hz and an increasing concatenation of 11s and 5s and 3s build a network of polyrhythm, harmony, and scalar logics. The Late Edition and Lost One dive into Wulliman’s musical relationship with his bandmates, wrangling the material built for this recording project into newly imagined works for live players unfolding webs of rhythmic and harmonic ratios.
SYSTEM NOTES (2023) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
BLINK (2022) – World Premiere for string quartet, electric guitar and electronics
Down Pat (2023) – US Premiere for electric guitar and electronics -Alec Goldfarb, guitar
The Late Edition (2023) – World Premiere for string quartet
Lost One (2024) — World Premiere for string quartet
The Docks (2022) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
como se vive (ii) (2023) — World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
The News From Utopia (ii) (2024) – World Premiere for string quartet and electronics
Austin Wulliman violin Alec Goldfarb guitar
JACK Quartet: Christopher Otto violin John Pickford Richards viola Jay Campbell cello
A livestream will be available free of charge at 8pm on the day of the performance and archived for future viewing. Watch below or on YouTube.
Praised as a “gifted, adventuresome violinist” by the Chicago Tribune, Austin Wulliman is widely known for his role with the JACK Quartet, called “America’s most important string quartet” by the New York Times. With JACK, he has performed worldwide at such venues at the Berlin Philharmonie, Wigmore Hall, Carnegie Hall and collaborated with such luminaries as Barbara Hannigan, Igor Levit, John Luther Adams, Patricia Kopatchinskaya, Philip Glass and a host of composers and performers. During his tenure, the quartet has received the Avery Fisher Career Grant in 2018 and 2019 Ensemble of the Year Award from Musical America, among other honors. He first forged his reputation in Chicago with the collective Ensemble Dal Niente, serving as the group’s Program Director, and winning the Kranichstein Music Prize at the Darmstadt Summer Course in 2012. Austin was also a founding member of Spektral Quartet, serving on faculty at the University of Chicago from 2011-2016. Consistently in search of new musical pathways through ensemble work, Austin has collaborated with a wide range of musical voices, from artists like Deerhoof and Billy Childs to Julia Wolfe and Kaija Saariaho. Furthermore, he has also been a guest artist with groups such as Eighth Blackbird, The Knights, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s MusicNow Ensemble. Austin serves on the faculty of the Mannes School of Music, where JACK is Quartet in Residence.
Hailed by The New York Times as “our leading new-music foursome,” JACK Quartet is synchronized in its mission to create an international community through transformative, mind-broadening experiences and close listening. Comprising violinists Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violist John Pickford Richards, and cellist Jay Campbell, JACK was founded in 2005 and operates as a nonprofit organization dedicated to the performance, commissioning, and appreciation of 20th and 21st century string quartet music. JACK has a prolific commissioning and recording catalog and has been nominated for three GRAMMY Awards. JACK’s all-access initiative JACK Studio funds collaborations with a selection of artists each year to develop new works for string quartet. Through its successful nonprofit model, the quartet has created hundreds of new works, and the world’s top composers choose JACK because of its dedication to innovation. JACK’s albums of music by John Luther Adams were nominated for GRAMMY Awards in both 2022 and 2023. Previous albums include music by Helmut Lachenmann, Catherine Lamb, Du Yun, Elliott Sharp, Zosha di Castri, and Iannis Xenakis. The JACK Quartet makes its home in NYC, where it is the Quartet in Residence at the Mannes School of Music.
Alec Goldfarb is a Brooklyn based guitarist, composer, and Hindustani classical musician. Active in the NYC jazz and new music communities, his work explores musical traits as historical vestiges of migrations, colonialism, geographies, labor, ritual. An exponent of the Seniya-Maihar Gharana, Alec performs Hindustani classical music across the globe on the guitar using a novel synthesis of sarod and sitar technique.
