Five Freedom Songs (2021) 20'
voice, percussion (1 player), and string orchestra voice - perc (1): crash cym/ride cym/hi-hat/brake dr/SD/kick dr/glock - strings
Co-commissioned by: Sun Valley Music Festival, San Francisco Symphony, Boston Symphony Orchestra; Andris Nelsons, Music Director, Grand Teton Music Festival, Kansas City Symphony, New Haven Symphony Orchestra, Virginia Arts Festival
Upcoming PerformancesPerformance HistoryPress
Upcoming Performances 
Press
Concert Review: Soprano Slack brings heartening spirit of freedom to Montgomery songs
Published June 20, 2024
Chicago Classical Review
“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…
TANGLEWOOD REVIEW: Tradition upended as the Boston Symphony Orchestra opens its summer residency at Tanglewood
Published July 10, 2023
The Berkshire Eagle
“For the Sunday afternoon audience, the widely admired composer and educator Jessie Montgomery previewed her 2021 “Freedom Songs,” a collection of lesser-known traditional Black spirituals adapted for voice, percussion and…
MUSIC REVIEW BSO opens its 85th summer at Tanglewood Under music director Andris Nelsons, the orchestra performed repertory staples alongside newer works by Iman Habibi and Jessie Montgomery
Published July 10, 2023
The Boston Globe
“The commission was followed by Jessie Montgomery’s “Five Freedom Songs,” an orchestral song cycle built on the stirring texts of five traditional Black spirituals, each of them in different ways…
Review: Jessie Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs premieres in Sun Valley
Published August 9, 2021
Bachtrack
“The music is all Montgomery, sensitive and powerful, and ingeniously using the instrumentation – strings and percussion – so that you can hear in the opening song My Lord, What a…