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++ Here is my review for Santa Barbara’s arts weekly VOICE Magazine of the Jasper String Quartet’s concert at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on November 21, 2019:

Jasper String Quartet – The Force is with them!

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Mary Craig Auditorium is a wonderful chamber music venue. Seating about 125 it offers an intimate audience experience. A bit dry acoustically, visiting ensembles, especially string quartets, must adjust their sound projection accordingly. Philadelphia-based Jasper String Quartet gave a superb recital there last week (November 21st) and filled the room to bursting with their huge sonic presence. On the program, Beethoven’s String Quartet Op. 18, No. 4 in C minor (1801); an intriguing work by composer Vivian Fung, her String Quartet No. 3 (2013) and Schubert’s heartbreaking String Quartet No. 14 in D minor (1824) known as Death and the Maiden, composed at the beginning of the composer’s horrifying five-year decline and death from what was at that time incurable syphilis.

Charismatic, describes the thrilling energy, perfect intonation, stunning blend and intellectual prowess of the Jasper String Quartet. Founded in 2006 while they were studying together at the Oberlin Conservatory, violinists J. Freivogel and Karen Kim, violist Sam Quintal and cellist Rachel Henderson Freivogel have filled their Jasper trophy rack with international prizes and awards ever since. The ensemble’s latest CD, The Kernis Project: Debussy was released in June and has garnered rave reviews. A compelling force majeur in the heady and competitive world of international string quartets, the Jasper Quartet is the real deal.

With the exception of Vivian Fung’s contemporary Quartet No. 3, the program last week began and ended with virtuoso standard repertory of the nineteenth century; Beethoven’s Quartet No. 4 and Schubert’s Death and the Maiden. Opening the concert with Beethoven, the Jaspers immediately transformed the room, the audience and in particular the acoustic, filling the place with a remarkably focused, full-bodied and gorgeously blended sound. The second movement Andante scherzoso quasi allegretto with its coy humor, Mozartean temperament, beautifully crafted fugato and bright C Major tonality in an otherwise C minor sound world, sparkled with color and dynamic fun despite Beethoven’s ever-present brooding on darker matters. The Jasper’s clean, crisp playing, perfect intonation and flawless technical execution illuminated all four movements, especially the last, Allegro – Prestissimo.

Canadian-born composer Vivian Fung is gifted with an imagination both intuitive and naïve. Her mesmerizing String Quartet No. 3 composed in 2013 is sophisticated in its structure, precisely to achieve the magical simplicity of her several sound illusions - a parlor organ intoning one of the guiding motives of the work; cluster chords of exquisite otherworldly beauty; an angelic chorale tune; birdsong. In one continuous movement and lasting about 10 minutes, Fung’s quartet is a reflection at least partially, of the composer’s personal milieu, thoughtful and meditative when west and east are in harmony, harsh, perilous and craggy as the mountains of Banff National Park (the work was commissioned by the Banff Centre and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) when tectonic plates literal and metaphysical, shift.

Sliding pitches, fascinating modes, sounds from centuries past and contemporary mashup, the work’s otherworldly ascending drift and dispersal at its end represented not only magnificently skillful musical narrative, but philosophical metamorphoses. The Jasper’s made each note count. Clarity of ensemble timbre and voice leading, superb intonation and studied attention to every riveting emotional detail informed first time listeners to the savories of this wonderful addition to the string quartet repertoire.

After intermission and by virtue of its majesty, the stand-alone work of the evening was Schubert’s 14th of 15 string quartets, Death and the Maiden. Arguably the most famous of the lot, every professional ensemble learns, loves and performs this masterpiece regularly. Catch is, how to keep the experience fresh for audience and players alike? From the first notes, Jasper Quartet’s interpretation jumped off the page. Informed and stylish, rich in detail, profoundly moving, the four voices of the quartet a rich blend of timbre and temperament, theirs was a revelatory achievement that will remain in memory for its energy and insight.

Daniel Kepl