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JESSIE MONTGOMERY
Composer

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her 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 profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post).

Since 1999, Jessie has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African-American and Latinx string players. She currently serves as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. She was a two-time laureate of the annual Sphinx Competition and was awarded a generous MPower grant to assist in the development of her debut album, Strum: Music for Strings (Azica Records).

Recent highlights of Jessie’s work include Five Slave Songs (2018), commissioned for soprano Julia Bullock by the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Records from a Vanishing City (2016) for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival; and Banner (2014) - written to mark the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner” – for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation.

Jessie is teaming up with composer-violinist Jannina Norpoth to reimagine Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha, being produced by Volcano Theatre and co-commissioned by Washington Performing Arts, Stanford University, Southbank Centre (London), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), and the Banff Centre for the Arts. The New York Philharmonic has selected Jessie as one of the featured composers for its Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting equal voting rights in the United States to women. She is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University.

JESSIE MONTGOMERY
Composer

Jessie Montgomery is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Her 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 profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (The Washington Post).

Since 1999, Jessie has been affiliated with The Sphinx Organization, which supports young African-American and Latinx string players. She currently serves as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. She was a two-time laureate of the annual Sphinx Competition and was awarded a generous MPower grant to assist in the development of her debut album, Strum: Music for Strings (Azica Records).

Recent highlights of Jessie’s work include Five Slave Songs (2018), commissioned for soprano Julia Bullock by the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Records from a Vanishing City (2016) for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; Caught by the Wind (2016) for the Albany Symphony and the American Music Festival; and Banner (2014) - written to mark the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner” – for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation.

Jessie is teaming up with composer-violinist Jannina Norpoth to reimagine Scott Joplin’s opera Treemonisha, being produced by Volcano Theatre and co-commissioned by Washington Performing Arts, Stanford University, Southbank Centre (London), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), and the Banff Centre for the Arts. The New York Philharmonic has selected Jessie as one of the featured composers for its Project 19, which marks the centennial of the ratification of the 19th Amendment, granting equal voting rights in the United States to women. She is currently a Graduate Fellow in Music Composition at Princeton University.