Composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery has won accolades across the U.S. and around the world, creating vibrant works that engage audiences and are defining a new classical canon. As she completes her residency as the Virginia Arts Festival Composer-in-Residence, Montgomery will curate and perform in a program that includes her own chamber music and works by her contemporaries. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear this important composer’s engaging works!

One of today’s most sought-after performers and composers has joined the Virginia Arts Festival as Composer-in-Residence; the Festival has announced a two-year residency with the acclaimed, award-winning artist Jessie Montgomery.

Fresh off her 2024 GRAMMY win for Best Contemporary Classical Composition, Montgomery will curate a concert featuring regional musicians, and participate in educational outreach, including visits to local universities and high schools, where she will work with young musicians who dream, as she once did, of a performing career.

“I admire the Festival’s visionary commissioning efforts as well as its imaginative programming,” commented Montgomery. “My past collaborations with the Festival have been deeply satisfying; VAF understands the needs of artists and the value our work can bring to the larger community. I appreciate the supportive environment of VAF as they leave room for artistic discovery and acceptance which I’m excited to share with the young people we’ll be working with as part of the residency.”

The Virginia Arts Festival has maintained a collaborative relationship with Jessie Montgomery since 2019, when she created the score for the Dance Theater of Harlem’s indelible ballet Passage, with choreography by Claudia Schreier. Commissioned by the Virginia Arts Festival, Passage was created to mark the 400th anniversary of the arrival of enslaved Africans in 1619, and to celebrate the fortitude of the human spirit and the will of a people to prevail. After receiving its world premiere at Norfolk’s Chrysler Hall as part of the Festival’s 2019 season, the work has become a staple in Dance Theatre of Harlem’s repertoire, receiving acclaim in cities across the U.S.; Oregon ArtsWatch called it “gorgeous, gut-wrenching, subtle, sad, dynamic and celebratory…a beautifully, skillfully integrated work of art.” The Festival was also a co-commissioner for Montgomery’s Five Freedom Songs, a collaboration with acclaimed soprano Julia Bullock which was performed at Norfolk’s historic Attucks Theatre as part of the Festival’s 2023 season.

“I’ve been a fan of Jessie’s work for a long time,” said Virginia Arts Festival Perry Artistic Director Robert W. Cross. “She paints in music, evoking story, mood and meaning in works that linger in the memory. It was such a thrill to watch as she collaborated on Passage with the entire Dance Theatre of Harlem artistic team, from the choreographer to the designers to the dancers themselves. She’s a generous and inspired collaborator, a gifted performer, and a phenomenal composer. We’re looking forward to great things in this residency.”

The child of artists, Montgomery grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan; her mother, an actress and playwright, and her father, a composer and recording studio owner, regularly brought Jessie to performances, and parties where neighbors, activists and artists gathered. Montgomery credits this unique childhood experience as the catalyst for her career, which embraces performance, composition, collaboration, education and advocacy.

When she was 18 years old, Montgomery became involved with the Detroit-based Sphinx Organization, a music nonprofit dedicating to nurturing young Black and Latinx classical musicians, creating a path to musical careers for budding artists whose opportunities were often limited. It was at Sphinx that she honed her artistry as a violinist and began her composing career, becoming composer-in-residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, the organization’s touring ensemble.

Today, Jessie Montgomery is “one of the most avidly commissioned composers of her generation” (Chicago Tribune). Montgomery’s orchestral works number among the most eagerly programmed across the U.S.; from 2017 to 2020 alone, the number of times Montgomery’s works were performed by symphony orchestras jumped from 20 to nearly 400, including performances by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Minnesota Orchestra. And that’s just one category: a prolific creator, Montgomery has completed commissions for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, the Joyce Foundation, the National Choral Society and more.

She remains an avid performer as well. Montgomery was a founding member of PUBLIQuartet, a string quartet made up of composers and arrangers who perform their own music as well as that of emerging and established contemporary composers. She has also performed with the Catalyst Quartet.