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| Nickname | Drizzy, 6 God, Seis Dios, Champagne Papi, Young Angel, Mr. October, The Boy |
|---|---|
| Genre | Hip-hop, Rap, R&B, Pop |
| Official website | drakeofficial.com |
Jessie Montgomery is a GRAMMY® Award-winning composer, violinist, and educator whose work 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. Named Performance Today’s 2025 Classical Woman of the Year, her profound works have been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful, and exploding with life” (The Washington Post), and are performed regularly by leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists around the world. In June 2024, Montgomery concluded a three-year appointment as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Mead Composer-in-Residence, and she is currently the Curtis Institute of Music’s Composer in Residence for the 2025-26 season.
Montgomery’s music contains a breadth of musical depictions of the human experience – from statements on social justice themes, to the Black diasporic experience and its foundation in American music, to wistful adorations and playful spontaneity – reflective of her deeply rooted experience as a classical violinist and child of the radical New York City cultural scene of the 1980s and 90s. Her growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works, as well as a new concerto written for cellist Abel Selaocoe, These Righteous Paths (2026), and an opera in development with Lincoln Center Theater and The Metropolitan Opera, both of which explore family histories and the impact of her mother, playwright and actress Robbie McCauley, on the American historical narrative. These Righteous Paths will make a global impact through worldwide performances by co-commissioners Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Klarafestival, Narodowe Forum Muzyki, Toronto Symphony Orchestra, BBC Philharmonic Orchestra, Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center, Aspen Music Festival and School, Oregon Symphony, Utah Symphony, and the NTR Zaterdagmatinee. From choral-symphonic works such as I Have Something To Say (2019) to her more intimate solo instrumental works, she presents a fresh perspective on the contemporary concert music experience. In response to Montgomery’s GRAMMY®-winning work, Rounds (2021), San Francisco’s NPR station KQED stated: “This is what classical music needs.”
A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet, Montgomery is a frequent and highly engaged collaborator with performing musicians, composers, choreographers, playwrights, poets, and visual artists alike. Recent collaborations include a recording and touring project with Third Coast Percussion, including a newly commissioned percussion quartet and an appearance with Montgomery as featured soloist in Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra; Chemiluminescence (2025), a new orchestral work co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, and the Sphinx Organization.
Montgomery’s interest in improvisation and collective music-making has led to the development of The Everything Band, which comprises eight composer-performers of varied stylistic backgrounds, including her long-time collaborator, bassist Eleonore Oppenheim, with whom she created the genre-bending improv duo, big dog little dog. Montgomery is also a founding member of the Blacknificent 7, a composer collective focused on presenting and supporting the works of Black composers through concert curation, scholarship, and mentorship.
At the heart of Montgomery’s work is a deep sense of community enrichment and a desire to create opportunities for young artists. During her tenure at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, she launched the Young Composers Initiative, which supports high school-aged youth in creating and presenting their works, including regular tutorials, reading sessions, and public performances. Her curatorial work engages a diverse community of concertgoers and aims to highlight the works of underrepresented composers in an effort to broaden audience experiences in classical music spaces. Montgomery previously served on the Composition and Music Technology faculty at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
Montgomery’s music has been heard on global stages across the United States, Canada, Central America, Europe, and Asia, from the Hong Kong Cultural Center to the BBC Proms, Elbphilharmonie, Hollywood Bowl, and Carnegie Hall. Highlights include Song of Nzingha (2024), part of soprano Karen Slack’s evening-length recital African Queens alongside other composers from the Blacknificent 7; Procession (2024), a percussion concerto written for Cynthia Yeh, Principal Percussionist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra; Space (2023), commissioned and performed by violinist Joshua Bell as part of his Elements project; Five Freedom Songs (2021), a song cycle conceived with and written for soprano Julia Bullock for the Sun Valley, Grand Teton, and Virginia Arts Music Festivals and San Francisco, Kansas City, Boston, and New Haven Symphony Orchestras; and an ongoing collaboration with choreographer Pam Tanowitz, which has led to several of her concert works being choreographed with major dance companies across the US, including the Nashville Ballet and the Miami Ballet, as well as I was waiting for the echo of a better day, a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape.
Montgomery has been recognized with many prestigious awards and fellowships, including the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and Musical America’s 2023 Composer of the Year. Since 1999, she has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization in a variety of roles, including Composer-in-Residence for the Sphinx Virtuosi, its professional touring ensemble. Montgomery holds degrees from The Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at Princeton University.
For more information, visit www.jessiemontgomery.com
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