Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso, Wu Man is a soloist, educator, and composer who gives her lute-like instrument—which has a history of more than 2,000 years in China—a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create global awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. Projects she has initiated have resulted in the pipa finding a place in new solo and quartet works, concertos, opera, chamber, electronic, and jazz music as well as in theater productions, film, dance, and collaborations with visual artists. She has performed in recital and with major orchestras around the world, and is a frequent collaborator with ensembles such as the Kronos and Shanghai Quartets and The Knights, and is a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble. She has appeared on nearly 50 recordings, including numerous Grammy Award-winning and -nominated albums. This season she premieres a new pipa concerto by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Du Yun, titled “Ears of the Book” with The Knights at Carnegie Hall and with the Detroit Symphony.

Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master’s degree in pipa. At age 13, she was recognized as a child prodigy and a national role model for young pipa players. In 2023, Wu Man was honored with both a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA), one of the United States’ most prestigious honors in folk and traditional art; and with the Asia Society’s Asia Arts Game Changers Award. Wu Man is Musical America’s 2013 “Instrumentalist of the Year,” marking the first time this prestigious award has been bestowed on a player of a non-Western instrument. She is a Visiting Professor at her alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi’an Conservatories. In 2021 she received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music.

With unparalleled artistry and enduring vigor, the Juilliard String Quartet (JSQ) continues to inspire audiences around the world. Founded in 1946 and hailed by The Boston Globe as “the most important American quartet in history,” the ensemble draws on a deep and vital engagement to the classics, while embracing the mission of championing new works, a vibrant combination of the familiar and the daring. Each performance of the Juilliard String Quartet is a unique experience, bringing together the four members’ profound understanding, total commitment, and unceasing curiosity in sharing the wonders of the string quartet literature.

In the 2023–24 season the quartet returns to Japan with concerts in Tokyo, Niigata, Mishima, Hyogo, and Nagano. In Europe appearances include the Konzerthaus Berlin, the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Hamburg’s Elbphilharmonie, Beethoven-Haus Bonn, Schumann Saal in Dusseldorf and the Wimbledon Festival. In North America appearances include Arizona Friends of Chamber Music, Buffalo Chamber Music Society, South Mountain Concerts, SOKA Arts, Hartt School of Music, Lied Center of Kansas, Chamber Music Society of Louisville, Emory Chamber Music Society and the Amelia Islands Chamber Music Festival in addition to concerts at Alice Tully Hall and People’s Symphony Concerts. Their programs will feature new works by Jörg Widmann (String Quartets Nos. 8 & 10) and Tyson Davis (String Quartet No. 2) commissioned by the quartet and premiered last season, in addition to works by Janacek, Beethoven and Schubert.

Adding to its celebrated discography, an album of works by Beethoven, Bartók, and Dvořák was released by Sony Classical in April 2021 to critical acclaim. Additionally, Sony Masterworks released a JSQ catalog release (The Early Juilliard Recordings) in June 2021. In the fall of 2018, the JSQ released an album on Sony featuring the world premiere recording of Mario Davidovsky’s Fragments (2016), together with Beethoven’s Quartet Op. 95 and Bartók’s Quartet No. 1. Additionally, Sony Classical’s 2014 reissue of the Quartet’s landmark recordings of the first four Elliott Carter String Quartets along with the 2013 recording of Carter’s fifth quartet traces a remarkable period in the evolution of both the composer and the ensemble. The Quartet’s recordings of the Bartók and Schoenberg Quartets, as well as those of Debussy, Ravel and Beethoven, have won Grammy Awards, and in 2011 the JSQ became the first classical music ensemble to receive a lifetime achievement award from the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.

Devoted master teachers, the members of the Juilliard String Quartet offer classes and open rehearsals when on tour. The JSQ is String Quartet in Residence at the Juilliard School and its members – Areta Zhulla, Ronald Copes, Molly Carr, and Astrid Schween – are all sought-after teachers on the string and chamber music faculties. Each May, they host the five-day internationally recognized Juilliard String Quartet Seminar. During the summer, the JSQ works closely on string quartet repertoire with students at the Tanglewood Music Center.