Georg Friedrich Haas’s visionary string quartets are designed to be performed in total darkness, creating a uniquely physical concert experience. His String Quartet No. 9 was written specifically for JACK Quartet, who have become the foremost interpreters of Haas’s works. As Haas wrote in his “darkness rider” for these works, “The outline of one's hand will ideally not be visible even when directly in front of their face. The darkness is absolute, and the effect is disorienting: an audience member feels they have become absorbed in an India ink level of blackness with no visual cues to demarcate the size and shape of the space or their relation to it.”