“Her musical diversity can be traced to being born and raised in New York City. Growing up on the Lower East Side in the 1980s and early 90s, Jessie Montgomery…
“Montgomery’s two offerings reaffirmed exactly why she was tapped as the orchestra’s composer-in-residence, writing with a Technicolor brilliance and harmonic plushness perfect for the CSO’s own heart-on-its-sleeve proclivities.”
“Thursday evening’s Chicago Symphony Orchestra program opened with ‘Coincident Dances,’ a fascinating 2017 work by Jessie Montgomery, the orchestra’s current Mead Composer-in-Residence. She never fails to enthrall with her rhythmically…
“If Jessie Montgomery’s music sounds familiar, it’s not just you. Any attempts to gracefully describe the 39-year-old New Yorker’s work tear classical music’s hackneyed binaries — between novelty and tradition,…
“One composer the field has especially turned to is Jessie Montgomery, whose often personal yet widely resonant music — forged in Manhattan, a mirror turned on the whole country —…
“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…
“For Jessie Montgomery, growing up in the Lower East Side of Manhattan was clearly a formative experience. When she looks back at her childhood, she sees a time of enviable…
“I love Jessie Montgomery’s “Strum” because I can find myself in it. The way it searches and shifts, changing colors and textures; the way the second violin and viola join…
“Ms Montgomery’s piece was a breath of fresh air. Musical styles from avant-garde jazz to Angolan eqlullabies quarreled and overlapped, keeping our ears pricked for the duration of the piece.…
“What sets Montgomery’s own music apart from so many of her antecedents as well as peers is how deeply immersed she has been for most of her life in the…
“I’m in my fifth year on the board of Chamber Music America, and more than half the board is people of color. It’s very evenly balanced as far as gender…
