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University of Illinois violin professor and Jupiter String Quartet founding member Megan Freivogel McDonough has been selected to serve on the 2026 faculty jury for the Senior String Division of the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition.
Founded in 1973 in South Bend, Indiana, the Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition has grown to become the largest chamber music competition in the world, and one of the most prestigious classical music prizes attainable today. Each spring, hundreds of musicians apply to compete in the live rounds on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.
The Fischoff is one of the only major annual competitions that offers both a Senior Division for collegiate students and young professionals and a Junior Division for musicians ages 18 and under. Over $60,000 worth of prizes and professional development and performance opportunities are awarded across four divisions during the course of the three-day Competition.
Meg Freivogel McDonough, second violinist and founding member of the Jupiter String Quartet, grew up playing chamber music with her siblings. Her childhood music teachers Ronda Cole and John Kendall, with whom she studied in her hometown of St. Louis, inspired her to pursue a career in music. She attended the Cleveland Institute of Music for a Bachelor of Music degree, studying with Donald Weilerstein and participating in the flourishing chamber music program run by Peter Salaff and the Cavani Quartet. From there, Meg moved to Boston and the New England Conservatory where she obtained her Master of Music and Master of Chamber Music degrees, acting as teaching assistant to Donald Weilerstein and studying closely with Lucy Chapman, Paul Katz and other members of the Cleveland Quartet.
The Jupiter String Quartet is a particularly intimate group, consisting of violinists Mélanie Clapiès 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, the 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.”
Article text from the Fischoff National Chamber Music Association, Meg Freivogel, and the Jupiter String Quartet.