Concert Recap
JACK Quartet opened Season 3 with Juri Seo's Dahlia, a world premiere in just intonation, before a packed house.
Publish Date:
October 26, 2026
On September 30, 2026, Nova Linea Musica opened its third season the way it means to continue: with a world premiere, a full room, and a conversation that carried on long after the final note. JACK Quartet (Christopher Otto and Austin Wulliman, violins; John Pickford Richards, viola; Jay Campbell, cello) brought Sonare and Celare to 11 E Adams before a packed house, with composer Juri Seo in attendance for the first public performance of Dahlia.
Artistic Director Desirée Ruhstrat welcomed the audience, speaking as a fellow string player about the rare chance to hear an ensemble so deeply fluent in harmonics and tuning. JACK then framed the evening with Cenk Ergün's paired works, both written for the quartet. Celare opened the program, soft, sustained, and almost weightless. Sonare closed it, dense and driving, with a clear sense of destination. One member of the quartet called Ergün's music the "bread" of the program, and the meal that followed was a full one.
In between, Keir GoGwilt, who was also in the audience, introduced his Treatise on Limited Freedoms: Future Mode I, a work that builds outward from Baroque and other traditional forms and grew from his time as a JACK Studio Artist in Residence. Violinist Austin Wulliman's own Escape Rites, six movements built on a palindromic 25-tone scale, brought driving rhythm to the evening's second half.
At the heart of the evening was Dahlia for String Quartet in 13-Limit Just Intonation, commissioned by Nova Linea Musica and written for JACK in the summer of 2026. Just intonation tunes each interval to a pure acoustic ratio rather than the compromise built into the modern keyboard, and few ensembles anywhere play it with JACK's ease. Seo has described Dahlia as more Romantic in character than her earlier just-intonation work for the quartet, blending late 19th-century chromaticism with pure tuning.
Before the performance, Seo spoke about the flower behind the title. Writing in Third Coast Review, Kathy D. Hey heard a brighter character and an effervescent coda, and saw the dahlia's intricate, spiraling petals as a visual metaphor for the tuning system itself. In about five minutes, the piece made a complex idea feel immediate and beautiful.
This season, the artist conversation follows the concert, and opening night showed why. Juri Seo and the quartet took questions from an audience that had just heard the music, and the dialogue carried straight into the chef-curated reception. Guests described the evening as "otherworldly" and like "stepping into a refreshing soundscape." One told us it "made me think of music in an entire new light." More than one called JACK "the greatest quartet of our time."
This is the complete Nova Linea Musica experience of three points of connection: an intimate chamber concert, conversation with the artists, and a reception where the dialogue continues.
Ahead of opening night, Chicago Tribune critic Hannah Edgar named Nova Linea Musica a "first-call chamber music presenter in the city" in her fall picks, selecting this concert among them. Seo was also profiled on Illinois Public Media's The 21st Show in the lead-up to the premiere, and Third Coast Review covered the evening itself.
A premiere is a beginning. JACK is carrying Dahlia forward on its touring programs, including its UK premiere at London's Wigmore Hall and a recital during the quartet's residency at the University of Iowa Center for New Music. This is what commissioning makes possible: a new work heard first in Chicago, then on stages around the world.
The season continues November 18 with Poiesis Quartet: In the Listening, featuring the world premiere of Iván Enrique Rodríguez's Roy's Address, a Nova Linea Musica commission. See the full season at novalineamusica.org/schedule.
