Violinist Nelson Lee Departs Jupiter String Quartet after 24 Years

The Jupiter String Quartet has announced that first violinist Nelson Lee would be departing the group after their concert at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts on September 26, 2025. As a founding member alongside violinist Meg Freivogel, violist Liz Freivogel, and cellist Daniel McDonough, Lee has performed as part of the Jupiter Quartet for 24 years. Now, he moves on to a position at McGill University in Montréal, Canada. The quartet has also announced that French violinist Mélanie Clapiès will be joining the group as Lee’s successor.

“It is with immense gratitude that I say goodbye to my friends in the Jupiter Quartet,” Lee said in a press statement. “I feel indebted to all of them for being the most generous and inspiring collaborators through this journey that we started together in 2001. I have learned so much from them over the years as we have grown from life as students to having our own wonderful families. I know they will thrive in this next chapter with Mélanie and wish them all the best going forward.”

Lee’s departure marks a bittersweet moment for the especially close-knit ensemble. Lee is the only member of the Jupiter Quartet not related by blood or marriage to the other members. (Meg and Liz Freivogel are sisters, and Meg and Daniel McDonough are married.) However, this does not mean he is any less deeply connected with the others.

“When you play in a string quartet, it’s like being married,” McDonough said of the bond the quartet has formed over the years. “And I am, in fact, married to Meg, so it’s doubly intimate in a way. But you spend so much time developing your sound, developing your repertoire, and going on the road together.”

The players formed the Jupiter Quartet in 2001, soon after graduating from college. Nelson, Meg, and Daniel met while studying at the Cleveland Institute of Music, and Meg’s sister Liz was studying at nearby Oberlin Conservatory. Their mutual love of chamber music kept them together as they departed for graduate school on the East Coast.

The Jupiter Quartet's early days. PC: Raman Ramakrishnan 

“We started the group without any big hopes or dreams but just with a shared passion for string quartets and wanting to explore the repertoire and develop as a quartet,” McDonough explained. “We were all in different programs for school. I was in New York City, and they were in Boston, but we started rehearsing on the weekends. We would take the Chinatown bus between Boston and New York, and we would spend all weekend rehearsing and learning music together. Eventually I made my way to Boston, and that’s when we got more serious as a quartet. We’ve been so lucky over the last two decades to make this our professional lives.”

The Jupiter Quartet has since performed around the world, collecting numerous awards and honors along the way. In 2012, they were appointed as artists-in-residence and faculty at the University of Illinois. While they continue to tour and teach elsewhere, their duties in Champaign-Urbana include giving regular concerts at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts, maintaining their private studios, and directing the chamber music program at the School of Music.

McDonough says it is unusual for a string quartet to maintain its original line-up for as long as the Jupiter Quartet has. He credits the players’ alignment in their professional and personal goals for this longevity. While they are sad to lose such a long-standing colleague and close friend, they are excited to see what the future has in store as they welcome first violinist Mélanie Clapiès.

“We want to thank Nelson from the bottom of our hearts for over twenty inspiring years as our close colleague and friend,” the Jupiters said in a press statement. “The countless memories and the depth of our connection is something that will stay with us permanently, even as we move forward in different directions. We hope he and his family will find great fulfillment and happiness in their new situation, and we will always be here to support them from afar.”

“We are also overjoyed to announce our new violinist, Mélanie Clapiès,” they continued. “She is a musician with a wide-ranging background in both Europe and the United States, a wonderful teacher, and an absolutely beautiful player, full of insight and creativity. We can’t wait to explore new ground with her as a quartet, and we welcome her and her family to our quartet family and our home community of Champaign-Urbana!”

Nelson Lee’s final concert with the Jupiter Quartet will take place on September 26 at the Krannert Center for the Performing Arts. The program will feature pianist Jon Nakamatsu in César Franck’s monumental Piano Quintet in F minor. Nakamatsu is a frequent collaborator with the Jupiter Quartet and has performed with them at the Krannert Center in years past. They are also on faculty together at the Bowdoin International Music Festival in Maine, where they teach during the summers. In addition to being a solo virtuoso, Nakamatsu is also “a consummate chamber musician,” McDonough said. “The Franck is notoriously hard for the pianist, but it’s in great hands with Jon.”

The program was set long before Lee announced his departure, so it was planned to highlight Nakamatsu instead of Lee. In fact, the concert begins without Lee with Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G Minor, which only calls for one violin. However, Lee will rejoin the group for Caroline Shaw’s Entr’acte. Shaw’s piece should provide a pleasant contrast to the crystalline Mozart quartet and the broodingly dramatic Franck quintet that surround it. A modern take on the Classical minuet and trio form, Entr’acte nods to forms, techniques, and harmonies of previous centuries but injects them with dissonances, idiosyncratic rhythms, and extended string technique effects.

Please join the Jupiter Quartet at the Krannert Center on September 26 as they bid a fond farewell to their beloved colleague Nelson Lee. Plus, stay tuned for an interview with Mélanie Clapiès in the coming months on Clef Notes. Clapiès is already settled in Champaign-Urbana and is preparing for the Jupiter Quartet’s upcoming tour to New Zealand. Her first concert with the Jupiter Quartet at the Krannert Center will take place on March 12, 2026.