She was a two-time laureate of the annual Sphinx Competition and was awarded its highest honor, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence. Since 1999, she has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization, which supports young African-American and Latino string players, and has served as composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the organization’s flagship professional touring ensemble. Paul Chamber Orchestra Coincident Dances (2018), for the Chicago Sinfonietta 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. Some recent highlights include Shift, Change, Turn (2019), commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the St. Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal and orchestral works. It is from this unique experience that Montgomery has created a life that merges composing, performance, education and advocacy. Her parents - her father, a musician her mother, a theater artist and storyteller - were engaged in the activities of the neighborhood and regularly brought their daughter to rallies, performances and parties where neighbors, activists and artists gathered to celebrate and support the movements of the time. Artists gravitated to the hotbed of artistic experimentation and community development. She was born and grew up on Manhattan’s Lower East Side in the 1980s, during a time when the neighborhood was at a major turning point in its history. Her profoundly felt works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” (Washington Post). Her music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of 21st-century American sound and experience. She is the recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and her works are performed frequently around the world by leading musicians and ensembles. Jessie Montgomery, the Mead Composer-in-Residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is an acclaimed composer, violinist and educator.
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