Emerging Voices:
Art Song & Social Connection

A native of Bolivar, New York, soprano Joélle Harvey has established herself as a noted interpreter of a broad range of repertoire, anchored by Handel, Mozart, and new music.

Ms. Harvey’s engagements during the 2021-2022 season include debuts at Opernhaus Zürich (Aristea in Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade), the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (Barber’s Knoxville: Summer of 1915, conducted by Jakub Hrůša), and The University Musical Society at University of Michigan (Handel’s Messiah). She joins Les Violons du Roy for further Messiah performances, returns to the North Carolina Symphony (Mahler’s Symphony No. 4), the Indianapolis Symphony (Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9), and continues her close collaboration with Boston’s Handel & Haydn Society in two appearances: Vivaldi’s Gloria and CPE Bach’s Magnificat, conducted by Jonathan Cohen, and Haydn’s The Creation, led by Harry Christophers in his final performances as H&H Artistic Director.

During the 2020-2021 season, Ms. Harvey filmed a performance of Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasilieras No. 5 with The Cleveland Orchestra as part of their re-configured season, made her Cincinnati Symphony May Festival debut, performing Britten’s Les Illuminations and joined the Handel & Haydn Society for a filmed production of their annual Messiah concert. Additionally, she collaborated with Los Angeles Opera on Anna Clyne’s The Gorgeous Nothings, a setting of Emily Dickinson texts for their On Now initiative, and later in the summer joined the Elgin Symphony for Barber’s Knoxville Summer of 1915, and Bard Summerscape for performances of songs by Nadia Boulanger as well as excerpts of Brahms’ Liebeslieder Waltzes.

Other originally scheduled events included her company debut with the Opernhaus Zürich as Aristea in Pergolesi’s L’Olimpiade (postponed), Pat Nixon in Nixon in China with Washington National Opera (cancelled) and Los Angeles Philharmonic (cancelled), Kansas City Symphony for their Messiah (cancelled), L’oca del cairo with Mozartwoche Salzburg(postponed), a Schubert concert with Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center (postponed), the Brahms Ein Deutsches Requiem with San Diego Symphony and Edo de Waart (cancelled), and Mahler’s 2^nd Symphony with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and Marin Alsop (cancelled).

Ms. Harvey received her Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in vocal performance from CCM, where she performed the roles of Amor in Cavalli’s L’Egisto, Emmie and Flora in, respectively, Britten’s Albert Herring and The Turn of the Screw, Poppea in L’Incoronazione di Poppea, Sophie in Massenet’s Werther, and Nannetta in Falstaff.

Praised by the Philadelphia Inquirer  for her “crystalline sound, perfectly true intonation, glowing warmth, and total presence” and named “remarkable, artistically mature … a singer to watch” by Opera News, soprano Sarah Shafer actively appears on the leading operatic and concert stages of the world.

The 2018 – 2019 season saw Ms. Shafer make her house and role debut as Susanna in Le Nozze di Figaro, directed by Stephen Lawless, with San Diego Opera as well as appearances with Harrisburg Symphony singing Poulenc’s Gloria and Villa-Lobos’ Bachianas Brasileiras No. 5, and Carmina Burana with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra conducted by Francesco Lecce-Chong. Recital work included appearances with Chamber Music Society of Detroit and Spivey Hall with Richard Goode, and with Richard Stoltzman and David Deveau, and Five Borough Music Festival with Martin Katz.

An avid recitalist and chamber musician, Ms. Shafer enjoys an active collaboration with legendary pianist Richard Goode, having recently performed Schumann and Brahms lieder at Carnegie Hall and Schubert’s Der Hirt auf dem Felsen with clarinetist Anthony McGill at the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society. She has also collaborated with such musicians as guitarist Jason Vieaux, and clarinetist Richard Stoltzman. Ms. Shafer was a resident artist at the Marlboro Music Festival for five summers.

A recent graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Ms. Shafer’s credits for Curtis Opera Theatre include over 20 productions and a variety of roles. A native of State College, PA, she holds degrees in voice and opera from the Curtis Institute of Music and is currently based in Philadelphia.

Acclaimed by The New York Times as “an outstanding actress, as well as a singer of extraordinary grace and finesse,” soprano Corinne Winters enjoys a 2019-20 season of major role and house debuts amid return engagements at beloved companies. Following her first Leïla in The Pearl Fishers at Santa Fe Opera, Winters makes a dual house and role debut as the title character in Moniuszko’s Halka at Theater an der Wien and makes her role debut as Rusalka in a new Tatjana Gürbaca production of Dvořák’s masterpiece at English National Opera. On the concert stage, she joined tenor Matthew Polenzani in recital for the George London Foundation and has appeared in recital with the New York Festival of Song, Tucson Desert Song Festival, and Vocal Arts DC, showcasing Spanish song repertoire from her debut album, Canción amorosa. An International Opera Awards nominee, Corinne Winters has won prizes from the Mabel Dorn Reeder Foundation, Marcello Giordani Foundation, and the George London Foundation. A National Semifinalist at the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions, she is a recipient of Wolf Trap Opera’s Shouse Career Grant. Originally from Frederick, MD, Corinne Winters earned degrees from the Peabody Conservatory and Towson University before appearing as a resident artist at the Academy of Vocal Arts.

Amanda Lynn Bottoms, mezzo-soprano, is a member of the Domingo Cafritz Young Artist Program at the Washington National Opera, where her mainstage work has included roles in Francesca Zambello’s Porgy & Bess, the Maurice Sendak production of Die Zauberflöte, Menotti’s The Consul, and the world premiere of Admissions. Acclaimed for her “superb vocal and dramatic chops” (Opera News), Bottoms debuted this past fall with Opera Philadelphia as part of the O19 Festival, performing the role of Smeraldina in Prokofiev’s The Love for Three Oranges. She competed in this year’s Operalia Competition, was a finalist in the George London Competition, received the 2019 London Encouragement Award, and was a national finalist in the Zachary Society Vocal Competition. In addition, she was a Memphis District Finalist of the Metropolitan Opera National Councils and competed in the Southeast Region Finals. Bottoms made her solo recital debut with Washington Performing Arts as a part of their Music in the Country series. She received her Bachelor of Music in Voice Performance from the State University of New York at Fredonia; her Master’s from the Juilliard School where she was a recipient of the Kovner Fellowship; and a Performance Certificate from the Curtis Institute of Music.

A naturally gifted singer known for her commanding stage presence and profound artistry, Jennifer Johnson Cano has garnered critical acclaim for committed performances of both new and standard repertoire. In response to her performance as Virginia Woolf in The Hours with the Philadelphia Orchestra, Opera News praised her “impressive tone and dead-on pitch throughout a wide range, and a fierce command of words,” calling her “a matchless interpreter of contemporary opera.” The New York Times noted her “mellow sobriety — and, in Woolf’s darkest moments, stricken intensity.” As Offred in Poul Ruders’s The Handmaid’s Tale she was lauded by the Times as “towering…restless, powerful, profound, she is as formidable as this astonishingly demanding role deserves." With more than 100 performances on the stage at The Metropolitan Opera, her most recent roles have included Nicklausse, Emilia, Hansel and Meg Page.

Cano undertakes a balance of orchestral, opera and chamber music performances each season.  She appears with major orchestras and conductors, and has collaborated on numerous projects with the Cleveland Orchestra and Franz Welser-Möst as well as the Los Angeles Philharmonic and Gustavo Dudamel in both the US and Europe. She has performed with the New York Philharmonic in both New York and Vail, as well as the Pittsburgh Symphony and Manfred Honeck.

Highlights of Ms. Cano's 2021-22 season included performances with the Philadelphia Orchestra and Yannick Nézet-Séguin in a world premiere of Kevin Puts's The Hours, a debut with the Chicago Symphony and Riccardo Muti and a return to the San Francisco Symphony for Beethoven's Ninth. She starred in the New York premiere of A Song By Mahler, a new chamber opera by Marc Neikrug at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center.  She made operatic debuts in Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites (Mother Marie) with the Houston Grand Opera, the world premiere of Gregory Spears' Castor and Patience (Celeste) with the Cincinnati Opera and Bartók's Bluebeard's Castle (Judith) with the Roanoke Opera.

This season she performs at the Metropolitan Opera in Falstaff (Meg Page) and makes her company debut with the Atlanta Opera in Don Giovanni (Donna Elvira); she also appears with the New York Philharmonic, New Jersey Symphony and Atlanta Symphony.  Jennifer returns to the Chamber Music Society of New York, where she performs Mahler's Rückert-Lieder; and to the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society in an All-Bach Program with the Gamut Bach Ensemble.

Previous operatic appearances have included Donna Elvira, Carmen and Offred with the Boston Lyric Opera; the role of the Fox in The Cunning Little Vixen with the Cleveland Orchestra and Welser-Möst; the Mother the Dragonfly, and the Squirrel in L'enfant et les sortilèges with the San Francisco Symphony; performances of El Niño with John Adams and the London Symphony Orchestra; Carmen with the New Orleans Opera and the title role in Orphée with the Des Moines Metro Opera and Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.

A native of St. Louis, she earned degrees from Rice University and from Webster University, where she was honored as a distinguished alumna and commencement speaker in May 2017. Her debut recital recording with pianist Christopher Cano, “Unaffected: Live from the Savannah Voice Festival,” was recorded live and unedited. Recent recordings include a live performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony with Manfred Honeck and the Pittsburgh Symphony as well as Bernstein's Symphony No. 1 "Jeremiah" with Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. She also recorded Mahler's Das Lied von der Erde with St. Luke's Chamber Ensemble.

Ms. Cano joined the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at the Metropolitan Opera after winning the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and made her Met debut during the 2009-10 season. Among her honors are Winner of the Young Concert Artist International Auditions, a Sara Tucker Study Grant, a Richard Tucker Career Grant and a George London Award.

Described by the Boston Globe as “one of the world’s most remarkable singers,” American tenor Nicholas Phan is increasingly recognized as an artist of distinction. An artist with an incredibly diverse repertoire that spans nearly 500 years of music, he performs regularly with the world’s leading orchestras and opera companies. Also an avid recitalist, in 2010 he co-founded the Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago (CAIC) to promote art song and vocal chamber music, where he serves as artistic director.Phan begins the 2023-24 season curating and performing in CAIC’s 12^th annual Collaborative Works Festival. This year’s festival theme, Song of Myself, examines the art of song as an expression of identity, and explores the complexity, multiplicity, and intersectionality of selfhood. Following the festival performances, he joins Portland-based string ensemble Palaver Strings for A Change is Gonna Come, a program he has curated in partnership with the group exploring song as a form of protest. In addition to songs by iconic social activist singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Malvina Reynolds and Pete Seeger, the program features two song cycles composed expressly for Phan: Nico Muhly’s Stranger (in a new orchestration) and Errollyn Wallen’s Protest Songs, a new work, of which he gave the world premiere performance in August.

Bass-baritone Douglas Williams has received international acclaim for his expressivity, outstanding stage presence, and generous vocal tone. In opera, concert, chamber music, and musical theater he is recognized for his versatility and range both vocally and dramatically, and this has brought him into collaboration with some of the great artists, composers, and directors of our time. His repertoire reaches over four centuries, being a sought-after interpreter of Monteverdi, Handel, Bach, and Mozart, in addition to the romantic and modern eras. In recital Douglas Williams appeared at the 2013 Ojai Music Festival singing works by Ives and Cowell, and the Tanglewood Music Center as a Fellow in 2011 and 2012 in a wide variety of song repertoire. With the baroque chamber group Tragicomedia he has presented a recital of Handel and Stradella at New York’s Morgan Library. Douglas Williams was raised in Farmington, Connecticut, and now lives in Berlin. trained at the New England Conservatory with Edward Zambara and the Yale School of Music with James Taylor. He has been a Fellow of the Tanglewood Music Center, the Carmel Bach Festival, and a post-graduate Fellow of the Yale School of Music.

Roderick Williams is one of the UK’s most sought-after baritones and is constantly in demand on the concert platform and in recital, encompassing repertoire from the baroque to world premieres.

Opera engagements have included major roles at leading opera houses worldwide including the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, English National Opera, Dutch National Opera, Dallas Opera, the Bregenz Festival and Oper Köln. He has been involved in many world premieres such as Alexander Knaifel’s Alice in Wonderland, several operas by Michel van der Aa, the title role in Robert Saxton’s The Wandering Jew, and the UK premiere of Sally Beamish’s Judas Passion with the Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment.

Recent and future concert engagements include performances with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, London Symphony Orchestra, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, BBC Philharmonic, BBC Symphony, Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the Hallé, Britten Sinfonia, City of London Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Gabrieli Consort, The Sixteen, The King’s Consort, Le Concert Spirituel, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Berlin Philharmonic, RIAS Kammerchor, Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Bayerische Rundfunk, San Francisco Symphony, Music of the Baroque Chicago, New York Philharmonic, Utah Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra, Sao Paulo Symphony, Bach Collegium Japan, and Singapore Symphony.

Roderick Williams is an accomplished recital artist who can be heard regularly at venues and festivals including Wigmore Hall, Kings Place, LSO St Luke’s, the Perth Concert Hall, Ludlow Song Festival, Oxford Lieder Festival, Howard Assembly Room in Leeds, Bath International Festival, Three Choirs Festival, Aldeburgh Festival, Edinburgh International Festival, the Concertgebouw and the Musikverein.  In 2019 he performed all three Schubert cycles at Wigmore Hall.   His recital programmes often feature repertoire by British composers, including many new works.  He appears frequently on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 as both performer and presenter.

His numerous recordings include Vaughan Williams, Berkeley and Britten operas for Chandos, and an extensive repertoire of English song with pianist Iain Burnside for Naxos.  Other recent recordings include an award-winning disc of French song with Roger Vignoles for Champs Hill Records, the three Schubert Cycles with Iain Burnside for Chandos, and recordings of Stanford and Somervell with Susie Allan for Somm.   He has also recorded Schubert’s Winter Journey in a new translation by Jeremy Samms with Christopher Glynn for Signum.  He sang Captain Balstrode / Peter Grimes with the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for Chandos (Gramophone Recording of the Year 2021).  Most recently he recorded his own arrangement of Butterworth’s A Shropshire Lad and other English repertoire with the Hallé and Sir Mark Elder, also for Chandos.

Roderick Williams is an established composer and has recently taken up the role of Composer in Association of the BBC Singers.  Commissions include a major work, World without End, for the RIAS Kammerchor and BBC Singers, as well as a commission to celebrate the centenary of the RAF.   He was Artistic Director of Leeds Lieder + in April 2016 and Artist in Residence with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra 2020-2022.  Currently he is ‘singer-in-residence’ for Music in the Round in Sheffield, presenting concerts and leading on dynamic and innovative learning and participation projects that introduce amateur singers, young and old, to performing classical song repertoire. In 2023 he was Artistic Director of the St Endellion Summer Festival, and Artist in Residence at the Aldeburgh Festival.

In 2016 he won the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Singer of the Year award, and in June 2017 was awarded an OBE for services to music. He also performed at the Coronation of King Charles III in 2023.

Acclaimed by Opera News as being “among the top accompanists of her generation,” and “…a colouristic tour de force” by The New York Times, Grammy® Award-nominated pianist Myra Huang is highly sought after for her interpretation of lieder and art song as well as her depth of musicianship and impeccable technique. Huang is invited regularly to perform around the world, with tours including regular appearances at Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, The Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center, The Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, The Kennedy Center, and The 92nd Street Y. 

Huang was chosen as the recipient of The Samuel Sanders Collaborative Artist Award for 2019 by The Classical Recording Foundation for her consummate artistry. Regular collaborations include recitals with Fleur Barron, J’Nai Bridges, Lawrence Brownlee, Sasha Cooke, Ying Fang, Joshua Hopkins, Will Liverman, Angela Meade, John Matthew Myers, Eric Owens, Nicholas Phan, Susanna Phillips, Roderick Williams, and clarinetist Anthony McGill.

Huang holds the positions of the Head of Music for the Lindemann Young Artist Development Program at The Metropolitan Opera, The Director of Musical Administration and Head Coach at The Aspen Music Festival, and faculty of the Collaborative Piano Department at The Manhattan School of Music, where she mentors and supports  young opera singers and pianists of the next generation. 

She regularly adjudicates national competitions including the Laffont Competition at The Metropolitan Opera, as well as administers masterclasses at institutions across the country.

Huang is an avid recitalist and recording artist. She is a two-time Grammy nominee for her albums Gods and Monsters and Clairières with tenor Nicholas Phan on the Avie label. Huang is a Steinway Artist.

Pianist Shannon McGinnis has been recognized for her skilled performances and solid support in partnerships with some of the brightest stars in the classical vocal music world. Recent highlights include appearances with soprano Kiera Duffy, as part the Collaborative Works Festival; tenor Nicholas Phan, on a live broadcast for WFMT’s “Impromptu” series; soprano Deborah Voigt, as part of a star-studded gala performance for Sing for Haiti; and mezzo-soprano Jennifer Rivera, for A Prairie Home Companion, broadcast live from the Ravinia Festival. McGinnis serves as adjunct faculty and vocal coach at the Chicago College of Performing Arts at Roosevelt University, where, in addition to coaching graduate level vocal performance majors and teaching courses in undergraduate and graduate diction, she has led a popular graduate seminar devoted to modern and contemporary American art song.

Tony Flynt is Principal Bass of the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto.  He has appeared as guest Principal with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Bard Music Festival, American Symphony Orchestra, and as a guest with the bass sections of the San Diego, Houston, and Boston Symphony Orchestras.

A chamber music enthusiast, Tony has been presented by the Philadelphia Chamber Music Society, Carnegie Hall, Musicians from Marlboro, and the Colburn Chamber Music Society, among others.  Tony is a former member of the Grammy-nominated chamber orchestra, A Far Cry. He has toured with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, East Coast Chamber Orchestra (ECCO), Sejong Soloists, International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), and as principal bass with the Mark Morris Dance Group.  He was in residence at the Marlboro Music Festival for four summers. Other festivals and fellowships include the Tanglewood Music Center, Verbier Festival Orchestra, and Yellow Barn.

Mr. Flynt was presented by Carnegie Hall at Zankel Hall in the New York premiere of Kaija Saariaho’s Folia for Double Bass and Electronics, joined by Ms. Saariaho mixing live sound.  He has also appeared as soloist in Jordan Hall, both as winner of the New England Conservatory’s Concerto Competition and as a featured member of A Far Cry Chamber Orchestra.

Mr. Flynt was a fellow of Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect (formerly Ensemble ACJW/The Academy) where he taught and performed in New York City public schools, community centers, hospitals, and prisons, in addition to a chamber music residency at Carnegie Hall.  The fellowship included opportunities to work closely with leading music directors, composers, and soloists, including Harry Bicket, Susanna Mälkki, and David Robertson.

Mr. Flynt has served as Co-Director of the esteemed Boston University Tanglewood Institute’s Double Bass Workshop, and as faculty for the Young Artists’ Orchestra, both programs he attended as a student.  He has also served as an adjudicator for Carnegie Hall’s National Youth Orchestra auditions.

Mr. Flynt attended Rice University, graduating with degrees in Music and Hispanic and Classical Studies, cum laude.  He attended the New England Conservatory as an Edward Hyde Cox Presidential Scholar, where he received a Master’s degree with honors, and the Borromeo Quartet Guest Artist’s award.

With their gripping performance style and unquenchable appetite for musical adventure, Brooklyn Rider has carved a singular space in the world of string quartets over their fifteen-year history. Defining the string quartet as a medium with deep historic roots and endless possibility for invention, they find equal inspiration in musical languages ranging from late Beethoven to Persian classical music to American roots music to the endlessly varied voices of living composers. Claiming no allegiance to either end of the historical spectrum, Brooklyn Rider most comfortably operates within the long arc of the tradition, seeking to illuminate works of the past with fresh insight while coaxing the malleable genre into the future through an inclusive programming vision, deep-rooted collaborations with a wide range of global tradition bearers, and the creation of thoughtful and relevant frames for commissioning projects.

Strongly illustrative of the intrepid musical appetite of Brooklyn Rider, the quartet recently premiered a major new work by the great Argentinian composer and close friend, Osvaldo Golijov, and launched numerous new collaborative projects. One is with Israeli mandolin virtuoso Avi Avital, and another is a brand new phase of work with Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, in which they explore themes of love and death through the music of Franz Schubert and Rufus Wainwright. They have also expanded work with Syrian clarinetist Kinan Azmeh and launched a major new commissioning venture for the 2022-23 season called The Four Elements; an exploration of the four classical elements (earth, air, water, and fire) as metaphor for both the complex inner world of the string quartet and the current health of planet Earth.

Prior to the global pandemic, the 2019-20 season saw a veritable explosion of new projects and releases. Shared at the height of the US lockdown, the Grammy®-nominated recording Healing Modes (In A Circle Records) presented Beethoven’s towering Opus 132 — the composer’s late testament on healing and the restorative power of new creation — interwoven with five new commissions powerfully exploring topics as wide-ranging as the US-Mexico border conflict, the Syrian refugee crisis, the mental health epidemic, and physical well-being. Described by The New Yorker as a project which "...could not possibly be more relevant or necessary than it is currently," the composers include Reena Esmail, Gabriela Lena Frank, Matana Roberts, Caroline Shaw, and Du Yun.

Earlier in the same season saw the release of two projects from vastly different musical spheres. One with the master Irish fiddler Martin Hayes (In A Circle Records), an album which the Irish Times described as “a masterclass in risk-taking,” and the other, Sun On Sand (Nonesuch Records), featuring the music of Patrick Zimmerli with saxophone giant Joshua Redman and fellow collaborators Scott Colley on bass and Satoshi Takeishi, percussion.

Brooklyn Rider has remained steadfast in their commitment to generate new music for string quartet at nearly every phase of their history. To kick off the 2017-18 season, Brooklyn Rider released Spontaneous Symbols (In a Circle Records), featuring new commissions by Tyondai Braxton, Evan Ziporyn, Paula Matthusen, Kyle Sanna, and Colin Jacobsen. In the 2015-16 season, the group celebrated its tenth anniversary with the groundbreaking multi-disciplinary project The Brooklyn Rider Almanac, for which it recorded and toured 15 specially commissioned works by musicians from the worlds of folk, jazz, and indie rock, each inspired by a different artistic muse. The Fiction Issue, with singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane, featured his composition which was premiered in 2012 at Carnegie Hall by Kahane, Brooklyn Rider, and Shara Nova. Additionally, Brooklyn Rider has enjoyed a long-standing relationship with the music of the iconic American composer Philip Glass, which began with 2011’s much-praised recording Brooklyn Rider Plays Philip Glass and continued with two subsequent installments of Glass’s works for string quartet, all released on the composer’s label Orange Mountain Music.

Numerous other collaborations have helped give rise to NPR Music’s observation that Brooklyn Rider is “recreating the 300-year-old form of string quartet as a vital and creative 21st-century ensemble.” During the 2016-17 season, Brooklyn Rider released an album entitled So Many Things on Naïve Records with Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, comprising music by Colin Jacobsen, Caroline Shaw, John Adams, Nico Muhly, Björk, Sting, Kate Bush and Elvis Costello, among others. Some Of A Thousand Words, an evening-length program with choreographer Brian Brooks and former New York City Ballet prima ballerina Wendy Whelan, was an intimate series of duets and solos in which the quartet’s live onstage music is a dynamic and central creative component. Some Of A Thousand Words was featured at the 2016 Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival, before two U.S. tours, including a week-long run at New York City’s Joyce Theater. A collaboration with Dance Heginbotham with music written by Colin Jacobsen resulted in Chalk And Soot, an evening-length work presented by Lincoln Center’s White Lights Festival in 2014. Brooklyn Rider has also frequently teamed up with banjoist Béla Fleck, with whom they appeared on two different albums, 2017’s Juno Concerto and 2013’s The Impostor. And in one of their longest-standing musical friendships to date, Brooklyn Rider and Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor released the highly praised recording Silent City (World Village) in 2008, still touring the project to this day.

Winner of the prestigious CMA Cleveland Quartet Award, Philadelphia's Jasper String Quartet is the Professional Quartet in Residence at Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians and the Founder and Artistic Director of Jasper Chamber Concerts.

The Quartet launched their inaugural season of Jasper Chamber Concerts in 2016, a series in Philadelphia devoted to world class performances of masterworks from around the world and Philadelphia, featuring Philadelphia-connected composers and performers on each concert. In 2019 the Quartet commissioned Lera Auerbach, Akira Nishimura, Chris Theofanidis, and Joan Tower for 4 Seasons | 4 Composers, a work bringing the brilliant muse of the seasons to the string quartet genre.

The Quartet's latest release on Sono Luminus features their commission of Aaron Jay Kernis’ Quartet No. 3 and Debussy Quartet Op. 10. This, their fifth album, adds to their recordings of Beethoven Op. 59, No. 3, Beethoven Op. 131, Schubert Death and the Maiden and the first recordings of quartets by Donnacha Dennehy, Annie Gosfield, Judd Greenstein, Ted Hearne, David Lang, Missy Mazzoli, and Caroline Shaw. .

Formed at Oberlin Conservatory, the Jaspers began pursuing a professional career in 2006 while studying with James Dunham, Norman Fischer, and Kenneth Goldsmith as Rice University’s Graduate Quartet-in-Residence. In 2008, the quartet continued its training with the Tokyo String Quartet as Yale University's Graduate Quartet-in-Residence.