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Jessie Montgomery (born December 8, 1981, New York City) is an American composer, chamber musician, and music educator. Her compositions focus on the vernacular, improvisation, language, and social justice.
Jessie Montgomery was raised in Manhattan's Lower East Side by playwright and performer Robbie McCauley and composer Ed Montgomery. She began her violin studies at the Third Street Music School Settlement. She holds a bachelor's degree in violin performance from the Juilliard School, and completed a master's degree in Composition for Film and Multimedia at New York University in 2012.[1]
Starting in 1999, Montgomery became involved with the Sphinx Organization, a Detroit-based nonprofit that supports young African American and Latino string players. After receiving multiple Sphinx awards and grants as a young performer and composer, she now serves as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the organization's professional touring ensemble.[2]
Montgomery devoted her early career to performance and to teaching at organizations such as Community MusicWorks in Providence, Rhode Island.[3] She co-founded the string ensemble PUBLIQuartet in 2010, and performed with the Catalyst Quartet until January 2021.[4]
She has increasingly focused on composing solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Montgomery has completed commissions for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra,[5] the Albany Symphony, the Sphinx Organization,[6] the Joyce Foundation, the National Choral Society, and The Guild of Carillonneurs in North America. She has received additional grants and awards from the ASCAP Foundation, Chamber Music America, American Composers Orchestra, and the Sorel Organization. Her music has been performed by the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra,[7] the Philharmonia Orchestra, Atlanta Symphony, Dallas Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony, and choreographed by the Dance Theatre of Harlem.[8]
In 2014, New York Times music critic Anthony Tommasini highlighted her piece Banner for solo string quartet and string ensemble, commissioned by the Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation as a response to the 200th anniversary of "The Star-Spangled Banner", for "daringly transform[ing] the anthem, folding it into a teeming score that draws upon American folk and protest songs, and anthems from around the world, including Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban, to create a musical melting pot".[9]
In 2019, Fanfare also discussed her multicultural New York influences, noting that listeners could expect to hear "English consort, samba, mbira, Zimbabwean dance, swing, techno... occasionally veering, somewhat ecstatically, towards a modern jazz jam session" in her work.[10]
In 2016, Montgomery was elected to the board of Chamber Music America.[11] In 2021, she became the Chicago Symphony Orchestra's Mead Composer-in-Residence.[12] Her 2021 composition, Hymn for Everyone, composed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, opens the Grammy-winning album, Contemporary American Composers (2023).[13]
She is part of the duo big dog little dog with bassist Eleonore Oppenheim. New Amsterdam released their first record in 2019.[14]
- Strum: Music for Strings (2015), Azica 71302[15]
- Voodoo Dolls (2008), for string quartet or quintet
- Banner (2014), for solo string quartet and string orchestra
- Banner (2017), for solo string quartet and chamber orchestra
- Break Away (2013), for string quartet
- Caught by the Wind (2016), for orchestra
- Coincident Dances (2017), for orchestra
- D Major Jam! (2020), for string ensemble
- Divided (2022), for solo cello and string orchestra
- Duo for Violin and Cello (2015), for violin and cello
- Five Freedom Songs (2021), for voice, percussion, and string orchestra
- Hymn for Everyone (2021), for orchestra
- L.E.S. Characters (2021), concerto for solo viola and orchestra
- Lunar Songs (2019), for voice and string quartet
- Overture (2022), for orchestra
- Passacaglia (2021), for flute quartet
- Passage (2019), for flute, clarinet, horn, string quartet
- Shift, Change, Turn (2019), for chamber orchestra
- Source Code (2013), for string quartet or string orchestra
- Soul Force (2015), for orchestra
- Starburst (2012), for string orchestra
- Strum (2006; rev. 2012), for string quartet/quintet or string orchestra
- Tower City (2018), for solo carillon
- Records from a Vanishing City (2016), for orchestra
- Rhapsody No. 1 for solo violin (2014), for solo violin
- Rhapsody No. 2 for solo violin (2020), for solo violin
- Rhapsody No. 1 for solo viola (2021), for solo viola
- Rhapsody No. 2 for solo viola (2021), for solo viola
- Hymn for Everyone (2021) (in the 2023 Grammy-winning album, Contemporary American Composers)
- Rounds (2022), for piano and string orchestra
- Study No. 1 (2023), for percussion quartet
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