Montgomery has degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University. A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and former member of the Catalyst Quartet, she is currently Professor of violin and composition at The New School in New York. 

Rounds was commissioned by Art of the Piano Foundation for pianist Awadagin Pratt and co-commissioned by a consortium of nine orchestras including the Hilton Head Symphony
Orchestra, which gave the world premiere on March 27, 2022, conducted by John Morris Russell, with Pratt as soloist.

Montgomery says the work “is inspired by the imagery and themes from T.S. Eliot’s epic poem Four Quartets,” especially these lines from the first poem, “Burnt Norton”:

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.”

Also, “while working on the piece, I became fascinated by fractals (infinite patterns found in nature that are self-similar across different scales) and also delved into the work of contemporary biologist and philosopher Andreas Weber who writes about the interdependency of all beings.…Structurally, I set the form of the work as a rondo, within a rondo, within a rondo.”

~ Program notes by Charley Samson, copyright 2023