Chicagoans of Note Jessie

MUSIC

CSO MUSICNOW: HOMECOMING

This program, curated by Jessie Montgomery, includes two of her compositions, Lunar Songs and Loisaida, My Love, alongside pieces by Ted Hearne, Elijah Daniel Smith, and Nathalie Joachim. Mon 11/1, 7 PM, Orchestra Hall, Symphony Center, 220 S. Michigan, $20, all ages

CHICAGOANS OF NOTE

Jessie Montgomery, CSO Mead Composer-in-Residence

“When I think of classical music, I automatically think of how it’s connected to new music. I think the CSO does a great job of making that connection, and I’m hoping to make that even stronger.”

As told to JAMIE LUDWIG

In April, violinist and composer Jessie Montgomery was named the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s new Mead Composer-in-Residence. Montgomery will split her time between New York and Chicago throughout her residency, which started July 1 and runs through June 30, 2024. She gave this interview while in town to prepare for the first concert of the CSO’s 20212022 MusicNOW season, Homecoming, which takes place on Monday, November 1.

I’m actually in Chicago now. We did a preview concert yesterday during the Ear Taxi Festival, which is a great new-music festival in town and a partner of CSO. The preview included a piece of mine called Lunar Songs, which is a piece for voice and string quartet. It was wonderful to get to know Ear Taxi. It really did have a steady stream of audience members coming through, which was great. Leading up to that, we had a couple of days of rehearsal, and I got to know some of the musicians of the CSO, which has been great. I also met Maestro Muti, and I went to a concert at CSO this weekend. So it’s been a tremendously warm welcome, with really wonderful activities going on.

I’m really excited to see how everything comes together. We were previewing for the November 1 concert, which will include Lunar Songs and another piece of mine called Loisaida, My Love. Both will be sung by Whitney Morrison. I’m really excited about this first program, because it includes a commission by a colleague of mine from Princeton, a young, fabulous, really up-and-coming composer, Elijah Daniel Smith [Scions of an Atlas]. And we’ll have a piece by Ted Hearne [Authority] and a piece by Nathalie Joachim [Seen], who is a great friend of mine. I’m just thrilled to be able to start working with them and Michael Lewanski, who’s going to be conducting the concert.

Most of my interactions with Chicago, up until about a year or so ago, have been in relation to the Sphinx Organization, because we would come here every summer to play a concert at the Harris. [Editor’s note: Mont-

Jessie Montgomery TODD ROSENBERG

gomery has been affiliated since 1999 with this Detroit-based nonprofit supporting young Black and Latinx classical musicians.] As part of the Sphinx Performance Academy, we were in residence with Roosevelt University and Northwestern University at different points for our summer program. In those cases, we were sort of in our little bubble of teaching our kids, and we would take them to Grant Park as part of our summer learning, and we got to see all those great Grant Park performances. One of my former students showed up at the Ear Taxi Festival, so it’s coming full circle.

As far as the city’s new-music scene, my fi rst introduction was through MusicNOW a couple of years ago, when Missy Mazzoli invited me to participate. There’s also Fulcrum Point, and I have colleagues in a really great string quartet called D-Composed. So I’m slowly putting all the pieces together and figuring out how everyone is connected. It’s really impressive how much activity there is here around new music and classical music. I feel like they all live in the same space—when I think of classical music, I automatically think of how it’s connected to new music. I think the CSO does a great job of making that connection, and I’m hoping to make that even stronger.

Part of the goal is definitely to help bring in other types of audiences. We have a partnership with Poems While You Wait—an organization that does spontaneous poems at public events—which I hope will be interesting for some of the literary audiences. I also have some ideas about bringing in performers who have a more pop bent but also work with orchestral instruments, and hopefully that brings in more of a mixed crowd. There’s a lot of overlap now between classical and pop music, as far as how classical composers are thinking about their work. Because I think there’s an immediacy people are craving with the music, so I hope that generates more of an integration with di erent audiences. I’m also actively looking for composers to bring into the fold who are working in digital media and other areas, like R&B, jazz, and alt-rock bands and stu like that.

In the United States, cultural identity has become a prominent discussion, and I think it’s really worthwhile and necessary so that we can create a little more balance in terms of representation and whose voices are being presented. In my curation for this MusicNOW concert, three out of the four composers on the program have Afro-diasporic backgrounds. My approach is really to include people with intentionality, but for the composers themselves, it’s about the opportunity to have their music presented. Whether the composers forefront their identity as the main element of their music is kind of up to them, but the representation of who’s onstage is what I’m focusing on. I just want the concerts to refl ect as many unique and individual—and diverse—voices [as possible]. Now that I have a platform to present these composers, I’m super excited to be able to fulfi ll that part of my mission.

One of the two songs I’m performing on November 1 is a tribute to Leonard Bernstein with a poem written by J. Mae Barizo, who’s a wonderful New York-based poet. The other song, Loisaida, My Love, is based on a poem by a Puerto Rican activist, Bimbo Rivas, who was very active in community development in the late 70s and 80s in New York City. In terms of my own cultural identity, I have many di erent ways, but one of them is defi nitely being like, “I’m a New Yorker.” I’m a New Yorker in Chicago, and so, bringing that with me, I have a lot of pride in that. The poem is about acknowledging that even though there’s a lot of difficulty and hardship in the community, through love and action we can turn it around. It’s a piece I really identify with, and I think it has a universal message.

I’m really excited to get to know the city, and get to know all of the artists here. And just continue to make strong connections for myself and hopefully for the CSO. v @unlistenmusic