Jasper Quartet

Winners of the Grand Prize and the Audience Prize at the 2008 Plowman Chamber Music Competition, the Grand Prize at the 2008 Coleman Competition, First Prize at Chamber Music Yellow Springs 2008, and the Silver Medal at the 2008 and 2009 Fischoff Chamber Music Competitions, the members of the Jasper String Quartet are currently the graduate quartet-in-residence at the Yale School of Music, studying with the Tokyo String Quartet. In 2010 they joined the roster of Astral Artists after winning their national auditions.

The Jaspers are the 2009-10 Ernst C. Stiefel String Quartet-in-Residence at the Caramoor Center for Music and Arts, joining an elite group of previous Stiefel Quartets including the Miro, Pacifica, and Jupiter Quartets. In 2009, they were the first ensemble to win the Yale School of Music's Horatio Parker Memorial Prize, an award established in 1945 and selected by the faculty for "best fulfilling … lofty musical ideals." In addition, the Jaspers were finalists in the 2009 Naumburg Chamber Music Competition and the 2008 Concert Artists Guild Competition.

Originally formed at Oberlin Conservatory, the Jaspers began pursuing a professional career when they became Rice University's graduate quartet-in-residence in 2006 studying with James Dunham, Norman Fischer, and Kenneth Goldsmith. The quartet has performed across the United States and in Canada, Norway, England, Italy, and Japan.

The Jaspers have attended the Aspen Music Festival's Center for Advanced Quartet Studies, the Emerson Quartet International Chamber Music Workshop, the Juilliard String Quartet Seminar, the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival and the Banff Centre in Alberta, Canada. In the Melba and Orville Roleffson Residency at the Banff Centre they embarked on "guerilla chamber music," performing concerts in unusual settings around Alberta. During their time at the Shepherd School of Music the quartet collaborated with the Houston Friends of Chamber Music to bring quartet programs into local high schools. They continue this work with educational residencies and their work as teaching assistants of Yale's undergraduate chamber music course.

The Jasper String Quartet is named for Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Its members come from St. Louis, MO (J Freivogel), Tokyo, Japan (Sae Niwa), Fairbanks, AK (Sam Quintal) and Ann Arbor, MI (Rachel Henderson Freivogel).