“Source Code for string quartet opened the program with the composer on violin joining violinist Monica Davis, violist Dana Kelley, and cellist Gabriel Cabezas. The quartet fostered the slippery movement between harmonic timbres and evoked a sense of solitude and contemplation — meditative, but also interrupting expectations, just like the mind.”

Donna Lee Davidson reviews the Jessie Montgomery Composer Portrait at Miller Theatre at Columbia University on Apr. 3.