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JESSIE MONTGOMERY
Strum, for string orchestra

Composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery is the winner of both the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the ASCAP Foundation’s Leonard Bernstein Award. In 2020 she was named to the violin and composition faculties at the Mannes School of Music at the New School in New York. In July 2021, she began a three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony. Montgomery’s music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, language, and social justice, placing her squarely as one of the most relevant interpreters of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral pieces.

Born and raised in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Montgomery began her violin studies at the Third Street Music School Settlement. She received her bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the Juilliard School, her graduate degree in composition for film and multimedia from New York University, and is currently a graduate fellow in music composition at Princeton University. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and currently a member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist, appearing regularly with her own ensembles, as well as Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble and the Sphinx Virtuosi.

The composer has provided the following:

“Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition.

“Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinatos that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.”

 

 

JESSIE MONTGOMERY
Strum, for string orchestra

Composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery is the winner of both the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and the ASCAP Foundation’s Leonard Bernstein Award. In 2020 she was named to the violin and composition faculties at the Mannes School of Music at the New School in New York. In July 2021, she began a three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony. Montgomery’s music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, language, and social justice, placing her squarely as one of the most relevant interpreters of 21st-century American sound and experience. Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral pieces.

Born and raised in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, Montgomery began her violin studies at the Third Street Music School Settlement. She received her bachelor’s degree in violin performance from the Juilliard School, her graduate degree in composition for film and multimedia from New York University, and is currently a graduate fellow in music composition at Princeton University. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and currently a member of the Catalyst Quartet, she continues to maintain an active performance career as a violinist, appearing regularly with her own ensembles, as well as Yo-Yo Ma’s Silkroad Ensemble and the Sphinx Virtuosi.

The composer has provided the following:

“Strum is the culminating result of several versions of a string quintet I wrote in 2006. It was originally written for the Providence String Quartet and guests of Community MusicWorks Players, then arranged for string quartet in 2008 with several small revisions. In 2012 the piece underwent its final revisions with a rewrite of both the introduction and the ending for the Catalyst Quartet in a performance celebrating the 15th annual Sphinx Competition.

“Originally conceived for the formation of a cello quintet, the voicing is often spread wide over the ensemble, giving the music an expansive quality of sound. Within Strum I utilized texture motives, layers of rhythmic or harmonic ostinatos that string together to form a bed of sound for melodies to weave in and out. The strumming pizzicato serves as a texture motive and the primary driving rhythmic underpinning of the piece. Drawing on American folk idioms and the spirit of dance and movement, the piece has a kind of narrative that begins with fleeting nostalgia and transforms into ecstatic celebration.”