Program Book - CSO MusicNOW: Jessie Montgomery & Curtis Stewart

TWENTY-SIXTH SEASON

CSO MusicNOW

Jessie Montgomery Mead Composer-in-Residence

Sunday, March 3, 2024, at 4:30

Musicians from the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Lidiya Yankovskaya Conductor

Curtis Stewart Violin

LEÓN

Arenas d’un tiempo

Susan Warner, clarinet

Daniel Schlossberg, piano

Chris Wild, cello

STEWART of Love

Curtis Stewart, solo violin

SOREY

For Fred Lerdahl

Daniel Schlossberg, piano

Cynthia Yeh, vibraphone

Ian Ding, vibraphone

Danny Lai, viola

MONTGOMERY

Concerto Grosso

Quarter Note = 112

Mellow

World Premiere, CSO MusicNOW Commission

Lidiya Yankovskaya, conductor

Curtis Stewart, solo violin

Anne Bach, oboe

Janna Young, harp

Yuan-Qing Yu, violin

Nancy Park, violin

Danny Lai, viola

Chris Wild, cello

Robert Kassinger, bass

STEWART Embrace

Curtis Stewart, solo violin

Yuan-Qing Yu, violin

Nancy Park, violin

Danny Lai, viola

Chris Wild, cello

Robert Kassinger, bass

STEWART Resonance

World Premiere, CSO MusicNOW Commission

Lidiya Yankovskaya, conductor

Curtis Stewart, solo violin

Hillary Horton, flute

Anne Bach, oboe

Susan Warner, clarinet

Nina Laube, bassoon

David Griffin, horn

Daniel Schlossberg, piano

Cynthia Yeh, percussion

Yuan-Qing Yu, violin

Nancy Park, violin

Danny Lai, viola

Chris Wild, cello

Robert Kassinger, bass

There will be no intermission.

Major support for CSO MusicNOW is generously provided by the Zell Family Foundation, Sargent Family Foundation, Sally Mead Hands Foundation, Julian Family Foundation, and the Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

The Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.

Pizza for CSO MusicNOW is generously provided by Jet’s Pizza.

COMMENTS

TANIA LEÓN

Arenas d’un Tiempo (1992)

Tania León on Arenas d’un Tiempo Arenas d’un Tiempo (Sands of a Time), composed in 1992, was inspired by the beaches I could see from my hotel room during a stay in Rio de Janeiro. The motions and gestures of the piece were suggested by the striking change in appearance of a beach’s sand when

the wind disturbs its tranquility and reforms the sand into a pattern of ripples. This influence of nature may be heard, for example, in how the unison attacks between the three instruments diverge into contrasting lines evocative of the constantly reforming patterns of the sand.

CURTIS STEWART

of Love (2023)

Curtis Stewart on of Love

A digital and personal requiem of sorts . . .

Of Love is a through-composed collection of works to cherish life, time, and lifetimes.

Recorded in the childhood apartment inherited after my mother’s passing, these original compositions for strings, electronics, and voice weave between

TYSHAWN SOREY

For Fred Lerdahl (2018)

Commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Association for a world premiere by the LA Phil New Music Group in January 2019, Tyshawn Sorey’s gently tolling chamber work For Fred Lerdahl is dedicated to the elder composer on the occasion of Lerdahl’s retirement. Sorey credits Lerdahl

a single poem of prayer and songs my visionary mother taught me—meditative recompositions of Greek folk songs, jazz standards, and Purcell.

These works flow directly from the impulses of holding and loss—a caregiver’s sonic grappling with grief that entangles music and identity. It hopes to hold onto this love just a bit longer.

as one of two teachers at Columbia University—also George Lewis—who helped him to find his own voice as a composer. Sorey said in a Columbia News interview that Lerdahl, “confirmed for me that improvisation was such a strong part of my music that to deny it was to be dishonest with myself.

This was truly liberating for me on many levels.” Sorey continued, “Both Fred and George pushed me to develop a greater understanding of what I want out of a given composition and to really address it in the notation—to have notation work for me.”

JESSIE MONTGOMERY

Concerto Grosso (2024)

Concerto Grosso is a two-movement work for mixed ensemble with a featured solo violin part. It is a contemporary take on the baroque practice of solo against ripieno dynamics, and improvisation in the solo part. The piece is composed in a way that allows the soloist to decide in the moment either to play what is on the page or to depart and add their own flourish against the

CURTIS STEWART

Embrace (2023)

Curtis Stewart on Embrace

Sampling music and words from communities where the work is performed— the work spins the idea of “outreach” on its head. Using sounds and thoughts from outside the concert stage to elevate concert music, including various forms of call and response between audience and performer + performer + listener in counterpoint.

A single, thirteen-minute movement, For Fred Lerdahl features a highly lyrical, muted viola over gentle, softly rhythmic dissonances from the two vibraphones and piano.

ensemble backdrop, a kind of “choose your own adventure” spontaneity that can either blend or add unexpected textures. The single wind instrument becomes a secondary solo line at times adding color and counterpoint to the solo violin line. Both movements are shaped primarily by interweaving melodic lines that provide the form and build their emotional evolution.

The recorded voice in this original version are quotes from my own mother, Elektra Kurtis, who was one of my musical inspirations.

Embrace was commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra with support from New York State Council on the Arts.

CURTIS STEWART

Resonance (2023)

Curtis Stewart on Resonance

This first movement kicks off with textural homage to my compositional inspirations—the brilliant orchestrations and rhythmic interplay of Ligeti’s Wind Quintet, the abstract theoretic combination of modes from the Lydian and blues scales, and Wieniawski’s overt use of technicality to hyper-elevate a brooding romanticism. The short scherzo-like work pits subtle influences of contemporary jazz voicing and introspective

PROFILES

Tania León Composer

Tania León is highly regarded as a composer, conductor, educator, and advisor to arts organizations. Her orchestral work Stride, commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, was awarded the 2021 Pulitzer Prize in Music. In 2022, she was named a recipient of the 45th Annual Kennedy Center Honors for lifetime artistic achievements. In 2023, she was awarded the Michael Ludwig Nemmers Prize in Music Composition from Northwestern University. Most recently, León became the London Philharmonic Orchestra’s next

PHOTO BY GAIL HADANI

counterpoint à la of Shostakovich with the frenetic and minimalist grooves of contemporary “Trap” music.

This work is an expression of the stylistic resonance of the above influences, along with the literal use of resonance: harmonics of the strings flowing from the crashes of cymbals, the ring of the piano and vibraphone bleeding into the sustain of the winds.

Resonance is the first of three movements of my Violin Concerto no. 1.

composer-in-residence—a post she will hold for two seasons, beginning in September 2023. She also holds Carnegie Hall’s Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair for the current season.

Recent premieres include works for the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Arkansas Symphony Orchestra, Detroit Symphony, NDR Symphony Orchestra, Grossman Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Modern Ensemble, Jennifer Koh’s project Alone Together, and the Curtis Institute. Upcoming commissions feature a work for the League of American Orchestras and a work for flutist Claire Chase and the Crossing Choir with text by Rita Dove.

A founding member and first music director of the Dance Theatre of Harlem, León instituted the Brooklyn Philharmonic Community Concert Series, co-founded the American Composers Orchestra’s Sonidos de las Américas Festivals, was New Music Advisor to the New York Philharmonic, and is the founder/artistic director of Composers Now, a presenting, commissioning and advocacy organization for living composers.

Curtis Stewart Composer, Violin

Four-time Grammy Award-nominated violinist and composer Curtis Stewart translates stories of American selfdetermination to the concert stage. Tearing down the facade of “classical violinist,” Stewart is in constant pursuit of his musical authenticity, treating art as a battery for realizing citizenship. As a solo violinist, composer, artistic director of the American Composers Orchestra, professor at the Juilliard School, and member of award-winning ensembles PUBLIQuartet and the Mighty Third Rail, he realizes a vision to find personal and powerful connections between styles, cultures, and music. Stewart’s 2023 album of Love, a tribute to his late mother Elektra Kurtis-Stewart, was nominated under Best Instrumental Solo in the 2024 Grammy Awards.

As a soloist, Stewart has been presented by Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Cal Performances, Washington Performing Arts, Virginia Arts Festival, the Juilliard School, and the 2022 Grammy Awards, among many others. Stewart’s 2021 album of quarantined song cycles and art videos, Of Power (Bright Shiny Things), was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Instrumental Solo.

Stewart has been commissioned to compose new solo, chamber, and orchestral works by the Seattle Symphony, Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Carnegie Hall’s Play/USA, countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo and members of the New York Philharmonic, The Knights, La Jolla Music Society, Sybarite5, the New York Festival of Song, Newport Classical Festival, the Royal Conservatory of Music, the Eastman Cello Institute, and more.

Tyshawn Sorey Composer

Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tyshawn Sorey is celebrated for his extraordinary ability to blend composition and improvisation in his work, while also offering incomparable virtuosity, and effortless mastery of highly complex scores. He has performed globally with his own ensembles, as well as alongside industry titans including John Zorn, Bill

Frisell, Joe Lovano, Vijay Iyer, Jason Moran, King Britt, Claire Chase, Roscoe Mitchell, and Steve Lehman, among many others.

As a 2017 MacArthur Fellow and a 2018 United States Artists Fellow, the bar is set high for Sorey’s continued evolution and success. His composition Monochromatic Light (Afterlife) was honored as a finalist for the 2023 Pulitzer Prize in Music and has been recorded with the Houston Chamber Choir and DaCamera for release in 2024. Adding to his reputation as a multi-faceted talent, DownBeat magazine recently recognized Sorey with its 2023 Critics Poll Award as a Rising Star Producer, while frequently placing him near the top of its Composer and Drum Set performance lists. Recent accolades include the Fromm Fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Goddard Lieberson Fellowship, and the Koussevitzky Prize.

Sorey joined the composition faculty of the University of Pennsylvania in 2020 and was selected as a Peabody Resident at Johns Hopkins University for Fall 2023.

Tyshawn Sorey’s compositions are published by Edition Peters.

Jessie Montgomery Composer

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 threeyear 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).

Highlights of her 2023–24 season include the world premieres of orchestral works for violinist Joshua Bell; a consortium led by the Dallas Symphony Orchestra for New Music USA Amplifying Voices; the violin duo Musings for CSO MusicNOW and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and new settings of various works by choreographer Donald Byrd for Nashville Ballet.

Montgomery has been recognized with many prestigious awards and

PHOTO BY TODD ROSENBERG

fellowships, including the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, and the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation. Her Soul Force is featured on the 2022 Grammy Award–winning recording by the New York Youth Symphony. She is currently visiting faculty at the Vanderbilt University Blair School of Music, Bard College, and the New School, and has been affiliated with the Sphinx Organization since 1999. Montgomery holds degrees from the Juilliard School and New York University and is currently a doctoral candidate in music composition at Princeton University.

Lidiya Yankovskaya Conductor

Lidiya Yankovskaya is a fiercely committed advocate for Slavic masterpieces, operatic rarities, and contemporary works on the leading edge of classical music. She has conducted more than forty world premieres, including seventeen operas, and her strength as a visionary collaborator has guided new perspectives on staged and symphonic repertoire from Carmen and The Queen of Spades to

Price and Prokofiev. As music director of Chicago Opera Theater (COT), her daring performances before and amid the pandemic earned recognition from the Chicago Tribune, which named her Chicagoan of the Year. In the six years since her appointment as Elizabeth Morse and Genius Music Director of COT, Yankovskaya has spearheaded the commissioning of eleven new operas, advancing the work of seven female composers and seven creators of color.

Following her debut at Santa Fe Opera in a new production of Dvořák’s Rusalka in summer 2023, Yankovskaya conducts orchestras across the United States. She debuts at Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Utah Symphony, North Carolina Symphony, Phoenix Symphony, Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra, Charlotte Symphony, and Symphony San Jose. At Chicago Opera Theater, she led a new Francesca Zambello production of The Nose and David T. Little’s Soldier Songs in the company’s fiftieth anniversary season, before returning to English National Opera for performances of Bluebeard’s Castle at London’s Coliseum.

Lidiya Yankovskaya is the proud twotime recipient of Solti Foundation U.S. Career Assistance Awards.

PHOTO BY TODD ROSENBERG

Major support for these performances is generously provided by the Zell Family Foundation, Sargent Family Foundation, Sally Mead Hands Foundation, Julian Family Foundation, and The Aaron Copland Fund for Music.

TWENTY-SIXTH SEASON

CSO MusicNOW

Jessie Montgomery Mead Composer-in-Residence

Sunday, March 3, 2024, at 3:45 Grainger Ballroom

CSO MusicNOW Preconcert Performance

D-Composed

Khelsey Zarraga Violin

Anya Brumfield Violin

Wilfred Farquharson Viola

Malik Johnson Cello

JESSIE MONTGOMERY

TOMEKA REID

AHMED AL ABACA

Songbird from Break Away

Prospective Dwellers

Our Stories

DANIEL BERNARD ROUMAIN Klap Ur Handz from String Quartet No. 5 (Parks)

Program subject to change

There will be no intermission.

D-Composed is a Chicago-based Black chamber music collective that celebrates Black culture and creativity through the music of Black composers. It aims to make classical music experiences inclusive and reflective of the Black experience by intentionally creating experiences that meet its community where it is. Its creative process ranges from breaking down preconceived notions, barriers, and opinions of what people think classical music should be to rewriting the narrative to reflect what the classical world could be.

Started in 2017 and led by its mission to uplift and empower society through the music of Black composers, this Chicago-based creative incubator acts as a bridge between the past and present to the future of representation, music-centered experiences, and the communal power of Black composers and their impact.

This group of changemakers is purposeful, creating its own rules around access and reimagining safe, culturally based spaces that reflect the Black experience. According to a study by the League of American Orchestras, African Americans make up only 2.4% of American orchestra membership, and two-thirds of orchestral repertoire features compositions by deceased white males. Meanwhile, D-Composed is entirely composed of Black musicians, and the repertoire exclusively features the works of Black composers, standing firm in its mission. These innovators challenge these statistics by intentionally creating experiences and themes

that appeal to a broad range of interests and identities within the Black community. At a D-Composed concert, it’s no surprise to see worlds collide—to hear the sounds of Florence Price on the same program as Solange Knowles.

Holding the door open to a historically excluded experience, D-Composed is caring for communities of color via culture and creativity, giving access and exposure to Black creativity, Black culture, and Black life through thoughtful programming, events, and content.

D-Composed community-engagement programming offers free and accessible performances to communities that have traditionally been excluded from classical-music experiences. These communities include schools, domestic violence shelters, senior centers, juvenile detention centers, and hospitals, among others. The ensemble has also created a coloring book that has reached over 500 teachers and students throughout the Chicagoland area.

D-Composed partners with institutions in Chicago that have a proven commitment to communities of color. It made history as the first classicalmusic ensemble for Today at Apple on Michigan Avenue and has collaborated with the Rebuild Foundation, MCA Chicago, and Arts + Public Life at the University of Chicago. Its reach extends beyond Chicago in partnerships with the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City (MO) and TUCCA in Brazil.

dcomposed.com