Jasper String Quartet Information

Philadelphia's Jasper String Quartet is delighted to announce that Grammy Award-winning violinist Karen Kim will join the Jasper String Quartet in June 2018. Karen is a remarkable chamber musician who shares our passion for string quartets, new music, education and community. She has appeared as a guest musician with us frequently over the past season and we are excited to welcome as a new member of the quartet a musician with whom we have established a dynamic chemistry. We are grateful for the 11 years of music making we have shared with our 2nd violinist Sae Chonabayashi. Together, we performed across the world, founded Jasper Chamber Concerts in Philadelphia, received the Cleveland Quartet Award and the Fischoff Educator Award, won numerous competitions, recorded 5 albums, commissioned and premiered many new works and worked with thousands of students. Sae has chosen to step aside for the wellness of her family after sudden familial health complications this spring. She will be moving to Washington, D.C. and we wish her the absolute best in all future endeavors. Winner of the prestigious CMA Cleveland Quartet Award, the Quartet is Ensemble in Residence at Temple University's Center for Gifted Young Musicians and Artistic Director of Jasper Chamber Concerts. The Jaspers have been hailed as "sonically delightful and expressively compelling" (The Strad) and the New York Times named their latest album, Unbound, as one of the 25 Best Classical Recordings of 2017. "The Jaspers... match their sounds perfectly, as if each swelling chord were coming out of a single, impossibly well-tuned organ, instead of four distinct instruments.