“The same stirring chorale writing and piquant instrumental pairings from last year’s “Hymn for Everyone” abound here. That may not be a coincidence. “Transfigure to Grace” adapts material from Montgomery’s ballet score “Passage,” premiered by the Dance Theatre of Harlem in 2019 to recognize the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in the U.S. In her foreword to the score, Montgomery notes that the spirit of “Passage” has “since flowed through other pieces I’ve written.”

“Transfigure to Grace” is essentially unified, though its distinct sections are identifiable when you listen for them: an evocative, ether-like opening, glowing with string harmonics; a middle stretch teeming with Stravinskyan mixed-meter rhythms; and a zippy finale which eventually slows to a solemn stride, sounding as brave and inexorable as a march to the executioner’s block. The nerve-fraying final cutoff washed over Thursday’s audience like a leap into icy water, brass blaring and cymbals rattling.

“Grace” made plain what Chicago audiences already know: Montgomery is behind some of the most idiomatic and irresistible string writing being penned right now. Herself a violinist, Montgomery unveiled a witty and genial violin duo at MusicNOW a few weeks ago alongside fellow Chicago fiddle luminary Rachel Barton Pine.”