Consisting of Meg Freivogel and Nelson Lee, violins, Liz Freivogel, viola, and Daniel McDonough, cello, the Jupiter String Quartet was recently awarded the Cleveland Quartet Award by Chamber Music America, a prize which “honors and promotes a rising young string quartet whose artistry demonstrates that it is in the process of establishing a major career.” They have also been selected to join Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Society Two for a three-year residency beginning in 2007, and have been awarded the Netherland America Prize, which will sponsor a tour of the Netherlands in the Spring of 2008. In 2004 the quartet captured the Grand Prize in the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition and First Prize in the 8th Banff International String Quartet Competition, where they were also awarded the Szekely Prize for the best performance of a Beethoven quartet. The Austin Critics Table honored them with the Award for Outstanding Chamber Music Performance in 2006.

Recent appearances by the Jupiter String Quartet include the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, the San Antonio Chamber Music Society, Princeton University, UC San Diego, the Evergreen House Foundation (MD), the Washington Performing Arts Society, Kansas State University, Mary Baldwin College (VA), the Krannert Center (IL), the Alys Stephens Performing Arts Center (AL), Chamber Music Albuquerque, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (NY), New York’s Merkin Concert Hall, and in Stanford’s “Lively Arts” series, among others. In October, they perform Mozart’s Two-Viola Quintet in D Major at MIT with violist Marcus Thompson.

Winners of the 2005 Young Concert Artists International Auditions, the Quartet was also awarded the Jerome L. Greene Foundation Prize, which sponsored their debut at Carnegie’s Zankel Hall, the Paul A. Fish Memorial Prize, the Buffalo Chamber Music Society Prize, the La Jolla Music Society Prize, the Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival Prize, and the Alys Robinson Stephens Performing Arts Center Prize. The Quartet holds YCA’s Helen F. Whitaker Chamber Music Chair.

The Quartet has performed at such venues as New York’s Lincoln Center, Boston’s Jordan Hall and London’s Wigmore Hall and has been enthusiastically received at major music festivals including the Aspen Music Festival, the Caramoor International Music Festival, the Great Lakes Chamber Music Festival, the Honest Brook Music Festival, the Tuckamore Festival, and the Yellow Barn Music Festival. They have collaborated with such artists as Roger Tapping, James Buswell, Paul Katz, Yong Hi Moon, and the Miami String Quartet. They have been heard on NPR’s Performance Today, on WQXR in New York, on WGBH in Boston, and on Chicago’s classical station, WFMT 98.7.

The Jupiter String Quartet places a strong emphasis on developing relationships with future classical music audiences through outreach work in the school system and educational performances. They also enjoy working with aspiring chamber musicians, and have served on the faculties of the chamber music programs at the Snowmass Suzuki Institute and the Austin Chamber Music Festival. From 2004-06, the Jupiter String Quartet was enrolled in the Professional String Quartet Training Program, earning Master of Music degrees in Chamber Music, at The New England Conservatory. They still reside in Boston.