This fall, Symphony Orchestra will perform contemporary American composer Jessie Montgomery’s piece Hymn for Everyone. Hymn for Everyone was originally composed as a commission for Chicago Symphony Orchestra as a part of her Mead Composer-In-Residence residency. In the past years, Montgomery has risen to stardom in the classical world and her music has been championed by many prestigious orchestras in America, such as the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and more. In this blog, Philharmonic Orchestra Violinist Jessica Liu writes about Jessie Montgomery’s upbringing, artistic journey, and the inspirations behind Hymn for Everyone.
Jessie Montgomery, a composer, educator, and violinist, was born in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. She was raised by her musician father and theater artist mother who nurtured her interest in music at an early age. At just four years old, she began studying violin at the Third Street Music School, sparking her lifelong passion for classical music. Her violin teacher, Alice Kanack, encouraged her to explore improvisation, which would become a distinct characteristic of her composition.
By the time Montgomery was an early teen, she had already begun writing music — at age 11, she was writing piano trios; then, she took composing lessons throughout high school. Her debut album Strum: Music for Strings (2012) is the final product of multiple versions of string quintets she wrote, and it earned her significant respect from the music world.
Inspired by her parents, who both were artists, Montgomery has always expressed an interest in conveying stories and lessons on the human experience through her music. Known for blending elements of classical, jazz, folk, R&B, hip-hop, techno, improvisation, and poetry, her work is rich with various textures, inspired by different cultural musical lineages beyond the standard classical repertoire. As the Washington Post describes, her music is, “turbulent, wildly colorful, and exploding with life”. In 2004, for the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner”, she integrated various components of music, including the Puerto Rican and Mexican national anthems to express her interpretation of multiculturalism and contradictions inherent in American ideals.
Montgomery is active in quartet music playing and writing. With other composers and arrangers, she was a founding member of PUBLIQuartet, acclaimed for its genre-bending programs that not only perform imaginative original pieces but also re-interpret classical works that push the understanding of traditional aesthetics and techniques of a string quartet. She also regularly played as a violinist for the Catalyst Quartet, contributing to the group’s commitment to diversity in contemporary music.
Montgomery frequently collaborates with other composers, musicians, and other renowned music groups. Montgomery has commissioned for the Albany Symphony, the Joyce Foundation, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Young People’s Chorus of NY. Among her recent works includes the Five Freedom Songs, a collaboration with Soprano Julia Bullock. In this work, Montgomery and Bullock honor their African American ancestry by incorporating Slave Songs of the United States in each of the five pieces. She also composed DIVIDED, using the cello to reflect the sense of helplessness of people suffering racial injustice, poverty, and climate change.
On Sunday, November 17th, CYSO’s Symphony Orchestra will be playing Montgomery’s Hymn for Everyone, a piece she composed during her 2021 Mead-in-Composer position with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Initially, she planned on writing an orchestral suite, but she was inspired to use a personal theme she wrote during the COVID-19 pandemic. The piece fixates on a small piece of melody that alludes to “Lift Every Voice and Sing”, commonly referred to as the Black National Anthem and originally written by NAACP leaders in the late nineteenth century. Hymn for Everyone also serves as a musical tribute to her mother, who passed away in May 2021. After her mother’s passing, Montgomery found a poem that she wrote, “Poem for Everyone”. In the piece, the melody gets passed between all the orchestral sections as it builds up in intensity. Simple and melancholic, the piece explores orchestration through lush textures in the viola section at the very beginning, reaching an expansive brass chorale in the middle, and ending in quiet meditation.
“Because I thought, yes, [my mother] taught me about how to think about the world, but it was sweet that I had, on my own, written this this hymn. Her poem was more political in nature and also kind of funny — poking fun at certain political mishaps and incongruous things that have been going on.”
Jessie Montgomery
A powerful, emotional catharsis, Hymn for Everyone embodies the spirit of unity and connectivity through music, resonating with the universal theme of togetherness and hope. A performance of Hymn for Everyone is not just a concert, but a communal experience that celebrates shared humanity and uplifts everybody in the room.
Be part of a performance that transcends words — tickets for CYSO Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall are on sale now. Grab your seats and join us for an unforgettable night, also featuring Dimitri Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor, OP. 93, and Samuel Barber’s The School for Scandal, Overture, OP.5.
About Jessica
Jessica Liu is a Junior at Stevenson High School. She is a violinist for Philharmonic Orchestra and a fun fact about her is that she has a pet fancy pigeon!
