Jupiter String Quartet
The Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Nelson Lee and Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel (Meg’s older sister), and cellist Daniel McDonough (Meg’s husband, Liz’s brother-in-law). Founded in 2001, this tight-knit ensemble is firmly established as an important voice in the world of chamber music, and exudes an energy that is at once friendly, knowledgeable, and adventurous. The New Yorker states, “The Jupiter String Quartet, an ensemble of eloquent intensity, has matured into one of the mainstays of the American chamber-music scene.”
The quartet has performed in some of the world’s finest halls, including New York City’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, London’s Wigmore Hall, Boston’s Jordan Hall, Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes, Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center and Library of Congress, Austria’s Esterhazy Palace, and Seoul’s Sejong Chamber Hall. Their major music festival appearances include the Aspen Music Festival and School, Bowdoin International Music Festival, Cape Cod Chamber Music Festival, Rockport Music Festival, Music at Menlo, Tucson Winter Music Festival, the Seoul Spring Festival, and many others. In addition to their performing career, they have been artists-in-residence at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign since 2012, where they maintain private studios and direct the chamber music program.
Their chamber music honors and awards include the grand prizes in the Banff International String Quartet Competition and the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition; the Young Concert Artists International auditions in New York City; the Cleveland Quartet Award from Chamber Music America; an Avery Fisher Career Grant; and a grant from the Fromm Foundation. From 2007-2010, they were in residence at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center’s Chamber Music Two.
The quartet chose its name because Jupiter was the most prominent planet in the night sky at the time of its formation and the astrological symbol for Jupiter resembles the number four.
This album was recorded with Nelson Lee, the quartet’s first violinist from 2001-2025. Lee now teaches full time at McGill University in Montreal. Dr. Mèlanie Clapiés joined the group, in the first violin chair, in the fall of 2025.
For more information, visit www.jupiterquartet.com.

Michi Wiancko
Composer
Michi Wiancko is a versatile and highly imaginative composer, violinist, and collaborator, whose multi-faceted creative projects and organizational work prioritize artistic discovery, as well as community resilience and social change.
Michi Wiancko is a multifaceted and imaginative composer, violinist, teacher, and collaborator, whose creative projects and organizational work are driven by community care and social change. Recent commissions include works for the Boston Chamber Music Society, Carnegie Hall’s Ensemble Connect, NOW Ensemble, Tucson Chamber Music Festival, Chamber Music Tulsa, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Seattle Chamber Music Society, violinist Alexi Kenney, harpist Julie Philips Smith, and American Ballet Theater.

An accomplished violinist, Michi was described by Gramophone Magazine as an “alluring soloist with heightened expressive and violinistic gifts” and has toured and collaborated with countless artists across numerous genres and styles. She has also released two solo albums to critical acclaim on New Amsterdam Records and Naxos label, respectively.
Michi is Artistic Director of Antenna Cloud Farm, a genre-fluid and culturally expansive music festival, artists’ retreat, and community partnership organization based in Western Massachusetts. She also founded and co-directs The Experimental Institute, a tuition-free summer intensive for early-career musicians focused on creative artistry, career mentorship, and social impact. Michi is Associate Professor of Music at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee.

Stephen Andrew Taylor
Composer
Stephen Andrew Taylor composes music that explores boundaries between art and science. His first orchestra commission, Unapproachable Light, inspired by images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the New Testament, was premiered by the American Composers Orchestra in 1996 in Carnegie Hall. Paradises Lost, an opera based on the science-fiction novella by Ursula K. Le Guin, received its Canadian premiere in 2013, conducted by the composer. In 2015 the New York Times called his piano work Variations Ascending, premiered by Ian Hobson, “persuasive and powerful.”
Taylor also works with live electronics and improvisation, most recently in incidental music for the performance piece Quantum Voyages, premiered at the 2025 American Physical Society in Anaheim. He co-directs the Illinois Modern Ensemble, and has also appeared as conductor with Sinfonia da Camera, the Nouveau Classical Project, and the Arizona Chamber Music Festival. As a theorist, he has written and lectured on data sonification, György Ligeti, African rhythm, Björk and Radiohead. In popular music he has collaborated on concerts and albums with Pink Martini, rock singer Storm Large, cabaret/performance artist Meow Meow, and pianist Lang Lang; his arrangements have been performed by orchestras worldwide, including the Oregon Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the San Francisco Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the BBC Concert Orchestra, and the Chicago Symphony. He was a 2014 Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation.
He grew up in Illinois and studied at Northwestern and Cornell Universities, and the California Institute of the Arts. His music has won awards from the Guggenheim and Howard Foundations, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Illinois Arts Council, the Conservatoire Américain de Fontainebleau, Composers, Inc., the Debussy Trio, the College Band Directors National Association, the New York State Federation of Music Clubs, the American Music Center, and ASCAP. Among his commissions are works for the Grossman Ensemble, Syracuse Society for New Music, the Jupiter Quartet, Spoleto Festival, Pink Martini and the Oregon Symphony, the Chicago Symphony, Quad City Symphony, Quincy Symphony, Quartet New Generation, Piano Spheres, and the American Composers Orchestra. Taylor is Professor of Music at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he lives with his spouse, artist Hua Nian.

Kati Agócs
Composer
Hailed as “a composer of imposing artistic gifts” (Gramophone Magazine) and “one ofthe brightest stars in her generation of composers” (Audiophile Audition), Kati Agócs creates “sublime music of fluidity and austere beauty” (The Boston Globe). Reflecting a multicultural upbringing and her own experience as a vocalist, Kati’s music gives new expression to both folk melodies and sacred rituals––and distills diverse traditions into her own unique voice that “demands to be heard” (The New York Times).
A Guggenheim Fellow and recipient of the lifetime achievement award in music composition from The American Academy of Arts and Letters, recordings of her music have been recognized with the 2022 GRAMMY® Award, as well as two nominations for Classical Composition of the Year in the Juno Awards (AKA the Canadian Grammy Awards).
Born in Windsor, Ontario of Hungarian and American parents, Kati studied composition at the Juilliard School with Milton Babbitt, and voice privately with Adele Addison. She serves on the composition faculty at the New England Conservatory in Boston and maintains a work studio in Flatrock, Newfoundland. She has written for many premier ensembles including the Boston Symphony Chamber Players, New York Philharmonic, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and was Composer-in-Residence for the 2025 Banff International String Quartet Competition.