The National Symphony Orchestra soft-launches its 94th season at the Kennedy Center on Sept. 14 with “Echoes of America: Music of Carlos Simon, Aaron Copland & Jessie Montgomery,” featuring bass-baritone Morris Robinson…
This season aims to champion those who use their art to stand up against injustice and inspire action. Concerts will feature works by prominent Black American composers that confront the…
“My favorite part of Jessie Montgomery’s “Space” movement was in the middle, a slow section that brought to mind the isolation of space. Bell’s slow artificial harmonics, played solo like…
“Being a composer is a solitary gig, even in the best of times. And that feeling of isolation can be exacerbated for people of color working in classical music’s predominantly…
Juilliard’s Feb 12 Composer Spotlight highlights Jessie Montgomery’s chamber music as part of her residency as an Arnhold Creative Associate
“The inimitable chamber orchestra The Knights concluded their three-concert residency at Carnegie Hall with an innovative programme that ‘lean[ed] into familial and intergenerational connections’, according to Knights violin soloist and…
“Bell savvily selected composers whose styles naturally mesh. One of the composer quinquevirate, Jessie Montgomery, said of The Elements, “It still flows as a piece. It’s all American composers, and I…
“Premiering Aug. 1 as part of Ravinia Festival in Chicago, African Queens features new songs by eight leading Black composers: Jasmine Barnes, Damien Geter, Jessie Montgomery, Shawn Okpebholo, Dave Ragland, Carlos Simon, Will Liverman, and Joel Thompson. The…
“Jessie Montgomery’s moving Hymn for Everyone from 2021 surely offended no one. Its pleasingly lush textures find the composer responding to a world reeling from both social upheaval and the Covid pandemic.…
“The evening’s highlight was Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs, written in 2017-18 for soprano, string orchestra and percussion. In her setting of five spirituals, Montgomery supports the original tunes with…
“Montgomery’s “Records From a Vanishing City” references the literal record collection of the family friend to whom it is dedicated. Thus, its musical surface is constantly swirling with unexpected colors…
“Since her appointment in the spring of 2021, Montgomery’s music has popped up like wildflowers on classical and new music programs locally. In the 2023-24 season now ending, here are…
“Montgomery’s new piece highlights, in her own words, “steadiness and relentlessness.” She writes in her program notes that the work demonstrates, “the unique role percussion can play as both a…
“Montgomery sees her appointment and Grammy award, both selected by her peers, as a commitment to continue ‘…to create visibility, to create more opportunities, more equality, more acknowledgment for Black…
“Speaking to the Tribune in December, Chicago Symphony composer-in-residence Jessie Montgomery teasingly called 2024, the last year of her Chicago Symphony residency, her “year of percussion.” And oh, how it…
“[Jessie Montgomery and Cynthia Yeh] clearly stirred up an intriguing, richly dramatic work for the orchestra in which the bold, mood-shifting sounds of percussion (on a drum set, djembe/bass drum,…
“Yeh approached Montgomery, the recent recipient of the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, about a possible concerto two years ago or so, and the composer was enthusiastic about…
“The second half of the concert was reserved for Jessie Montgomery, both as a composer and as a violinist. First, Sean Connors introduced the Suite from In Color, a work he transcribed…
“Montgomery was a serene presence amid the flurry of percussive punctuations and complex rhythms around her. While the first movement featured devilish double stops in the unaccompanied cadenza, her most…
“The jaw-dropping highlight of the program, which repeats Friday at the Green Music Center and Saturday at the Presidio Theatre, was pianist Awadagin Pratt’s performance of Jessie Montgomery’s Rounds. Re-reading my…