“The program opens with Strum by 2024 GRAMMY-winning composer, violinist and educator Jessie Montgomery, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s current Mead Composer-in-Residence, who has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization since 1999. Originally composed for cello quintet, Strum draws on American folk idioms evoking a spirit of dance and movement. As Montgomery writes in the program note for the piece: ‘I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinati that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out… The piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.'”