CSO MusicNOW FEATURING COMPOSER JESSIE MONTGOMERY - NOVEMBER 1, 2021
The 2021/22 CSO MusicNOW series opens at Orchestra Hall with Homecoming - a program curated by Mead Composer-in-Residence and Princeton PhD candidate, Jessie Montgomery, that celebrates composers with ties to Chicago. This evening also features a world premiere by fellow composer and Princeton PhD candidate, rising star, Elijah Daniel Smith, that reimagines the Baroque concerto grosso form.
Seats to the public are general admission, but we will have specially reserved group seats on the main floor for Princeton Club of Chicago guests and an opportunity to meet with Jessie and Elijah after the performance.
Reserve your seats by October 27th to join fellow Tigers and friends for this special performance!
Program opens with Smith's Scions of an Atlas (scroll down for his bio), followed by Montgomery's set of enchanting vocal works based on texts by J. Mae Barizo and Bimbo Rivas: Losaida, My Love and Lunar Songs. Haitian American flutist-composer Nathalie Joachim explores individual and cultural identity in her wind quintet Seen. Program finishes with cutting-edge composer Ted Hearne's Authority. Conductor: Michael Lewanski, Soprano: Whitney Morrison.
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IMPORTANT: Click THIS LINK prior to purchasing tickets to review the CSO's latest #SAFEANDSOUND guidelines for guests.
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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2021
7 PM CENTRAL
SYMPHONY CENTER
220 S MICHIGAN AVE
90 minutes performance time, no intermission
PCC MEMBERS: $20
NON-MEMBERS: $25
SPECIAL PRINCETON CLUB RATES INCLUDE SAVINGS OF $7/TICKET ADMIN FEE AND RESERVED GROUP SEATING ON THE MAIN FLOOR.
ALL GUESTS MUST BE AWARE OF AND FOLLOW CSO #SAFEANDSOUND COVID GUIDELINES TO ATTEND.
CLICK TO RESERVE - ONLY TWO TIX LEFT!
Join NOW to receive PCC Member priority reservation, member pricing, and to support Princeton events and service opportunities. Membership is free for Class of 2021, but you must join. Membership starts at only $25/year.
Questions? Contact Charlene Huang Olson '88 at cholson@alumni.princeton.edu, Mimi Murley '76 at murlspiv@gmail.com, Michael Manning '17 at manningm@alumni.princeton.edu, or Emily Liao Master '01 at Elm@alumni.princeton.edu
If you are experiencing technical difficulties registering on-line, please call Alumni Services and register over the phone: 847-256-5800. Site accepts MC/Visa only.
Elijah Daniel Smith, President's Fellow PhD Candidate in Music Composition
Described by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a “rising star,” composer Elijah Daniel Smith is quickly establishing himself as one of today’s leading young composers. From orchestral compositions to multimedia and interdisciplinary collaborations, Elijah’s affinity for dense and complex textures, rhythmic ambiguity and fluidity, and rich gravitational harmonies shines through in all of his creations. Elijah’s music has been premiered and performed by world renowned ensembles such as Mivos Quartet, Sō Percussion, Sandbox Percussion, Contemporaneous, Ensemble Linea, Ecce Ensemble, Fuse Quartet, and Earspace. Upcoming commissions include new works for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra for MusicNOW, Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, Bergamot Quartet, and saxophonist Julian Velasco on behalf of the Luminarts Cultural Foundation.
Elijah’s creative endeavors extend beyond the realm of traditional concert composition, including interdisciplinary work and commissions from multiple dance companies and choreographers throughout the United States. His ability to realize his own dynamic multimedia visions was cultivated by his experience as a recording, mixing, and mastering engineer for his own studio music, film scores and electro-acoustic music. In his 2019 multimedia project Come, Clarity, Elijah exercised his visual artistry as a filmmaker and photographer, creating the film as well as composing and producing the music himself.
Elijah is currently pursuing his PhD in Music Composition at Princeton University as a President’s Fellow after earning a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Composition from the Boston Conservatory in 2017, and a Master of Music degree in Music Composition from the Peabody Institute of The Johns Hopkins University in 2020.
To explore and listen to Elijah's work, please visit: https://www.elijahdanielsmith.com/
Jessie Montgomery, the Mead Composer-in-Residence of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is an acclaimed composer, violinist and educator. She holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a graduate fellow in music composition at Princeton University. She is a professor of violin and composition at The New School. In July 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.
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. 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.
Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal and orchestral works.
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. She was a two-time laureate of the annual Sphinx Competition and was awarded its highest honor, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence. She has received additional grants and awards from the ASCAP Foundation, Chamber Music America, American Composers Orchestra, the Joyce Foundation and the Sorel Organization.
The New York Philharmonic has selected Montgomery 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 to U.S. women. Other forthcoming works include a nonet inspired by the Great Migration, told from the perspective of Montgomery’s great-grandfather William McCauley, and to be performed by Imani Winds and the Catalyst Quartet; a cello concerto for Thomas Mesa, jointly commissioned by Carnegie Hall, New World Symphony and the Sphinx Organization; a new orchestral work for the National Symphony Orchestra; the viola concerto L.E.S. Characters for Masumi per Rostad, commissioned by the Grant Park Music Festival, City Music Cleveland, Interlochen Center for the Arts, the Orlando Philharmonic and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; a new arrangement of a song cycle, Five Freedom Songs, written for soprano Julia Bullock, and a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape festival and Pam Tanowitz Dance, I was waiting for the echo of a better day, with choreography by Pam Tanowitz and music by Jessie Montgomery and Big Dog Little Dog.
For a more detailed bio, please visit:
https://cso.org/about/performers/affiliated-artists/jessie-montgomery/
For a recent article about Jessie in the New York Times click HERE.