Friday, May 31, 2024, at 7:00 Buntrock Hall
YOUNG COMPOSERS INITIATIVE
2023–24 FINALE CONCERT
Musicians from the Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Jessie Montgomery Mead Composer-in-Residence and Host
MUHAMMAD
PINE
Untitled
Pull of Life from [ ] Through [ ] for String Quartet
GUO OPERA(S)
GARCÍA-AÑOVEROS III El Darién
FRANTZEN Ghost Light Vignettes
ALDAY Glorious Resurrection
The Young Composers Initiative is generously supported by Margo and Mike Oberman.
The 2023–24 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.
Jessie Montgomery
Mead Composer-in-Residence and Host
Jessie Montgomery, Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year, is an acclaimed composer, violinist, and educator whose music interweaves classical music with elements of vernacular music, improvisation, poetry, and social consciousness, making her an acute interpreter of twenty-first century American sound and experience. In July 2021, she began a three-year appointment as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence. In 2024, Jessie Montgomery won the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Classical Composition for her Rounds, recorded by Awadagin Pratt and A Far Cry for New Amsterdam Records.
Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works, as well as collaborations with distinguished choreographers. Recent premieres include CSO commissions Hymn for Everyone (2021) and Transfigure to Grace (2023); Five Freedom Songs (2021), a song cycle for soprano Julia Bullock; a set of concertos—DIVIDED (2022), Rounds (2021), and L.E.S. Characters (2020); and a site-specific collaboration for Bard SummerScape and Pam Tanowitz Dance (2021). This week her CSOcommissioned percussion concerto, Procession, receives its world premiere with the CSO and Cynthia Yeh as soloist.
Angel Alday Composer, The Chicago High School for the Arts
Angel Alday grew up near Midway and began studying music in the sixth grade with Carlos Ayento while attending Maria Saucedo Scholastic Academy. Now as a senior, Angel attends the Chicago High School for the Arts (ChiArts), where he currently double majors in tenor trombone and euphonium performance and composition. He attended Interlochen Arts Camp in 2022 under ChiArts. During his junior year, he had two pieces premiered: a wind quintet on the CSO MusicNOW series and another by the NOIS Saxophone Quartet. Angel has also been accepted to programs such as the Chicago Musical Pathways Initiative and Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras’ Philharmonic Orchestra.
Clara Frantzen Composer, Oak Park and River Forest High School
Clara Frantzen (they/ them) is a violinist, composer, arranger, and conductor. Clara has played with Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras (CYSO) for the last seven years and currently plays in its Symphony Orchestra. Clara is a junior at Oak Park and River Forest High School where they were a finalist in this year’s concerto competition and co-concertmaster in its Symphony Orchestra. They joined the school’s jazz band this year
and received an Outstanding Soloist Award at the Perdue Jazz Festival in January. Clara has studied at the Young Composer’s Program at Cleveland Institute of Music, violin at Interlochen Arts Camp, and violin and conducting at Philadelphia International Music Festival. Clara studies violin with Rachel Brown and orchestration and conducting with Anthony Barrese. This summer, Clara will be taking part in New England Conservatory’s Summer Orchestra Institute and Berklee’s film, TV, and game scoring program in Los Angeles.
Jaime García-Añoveros III Composer, Northside College Prep
Jaime GarcíaAñoveros is an aspiring composer and violinist. His music borrows heavily from literary narratives, exploring the musical reimagining of his favorite novels, poems, and short stories through unorthodox harmonic language and vibrant textures. He plays violin in the Symphony Orchestra, Classical Repertory Ensemble, and Recording Studio Orchestra of the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras. Jaime has studied with various composers, including Cynthia van Maanen, Amanda Harberg, Eric Malmquist, Ryan Suleiman, Kevin James, and Ben Hjertmann. He has participated in the Berklee College of Music High School Composition Intensive, the Interlochen Arts Festival Composition Program, Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras Composition Seminar, and the American Composers Orchestra “Compose
Yourself” program. Most recently, his works have premiered at Berklee College of Music, the Interlochen Arts Festival, the Midwest Clinic, and on WFMT’s Introductions. He has worked with various ensembles, including the ATLYS string quartet, Gaudete brass quintet, CYSO Philharmonic Orchestra, and 5th Wave Collective.
Zachary Guo Composer, Deerfield High School
Zachary Guo is a scholarship fellow at the Music Institute of Chicago’s Academy, a training center for advanced pre-college musicians. He currently studies piano with Matthew Hagle, composition with Christopher Jones, and organ with Peter Morey as the Opus 327 Junior Organ Scholar. Zachary has received first place in the Sejong Music Competition and the Chicago Steinway Piano Competition. Zachary made his orchestral debut with the Northeastern Illinois University Symphony Orchestra as a winner of the 2019 Chicago Chamber Music Festival Concerto Competition. In 2023, he performed Gabriel Lena Frank’s piano concerto, Cuentos Errantes, with the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra. Zachary was named the 2021 Senior Division Illinois representative of the Music Teachers National Association Composition Competition as well as the first-place winner of the 2022 Illinois Music Education Association Solo Composition Competition. In 2022, Zachary founded the Deerfield Youth Modern Ensemble. He has also worked with Ensemble Dal Niente.
