Friday, June 12, 2026, at 7:00
Buntrock Hall
YOUNG COMPOSERS INITIATIVE
2025–26 SEASON FINALE CONCERT
Jessie Montgomery Host
Musicians from the Civic Orchestra of Chicago
BAEZA mesh and misalignment
PAGE Albedo
BLAIR Organs of Chicago
DONG Dream of a Butterfly
MERTZ flâneur, obscured
MUÑOZ Tierra y despojo
The Young Composers Initiative is generously supported by Margo and Mike Oberman.
The 2025–26 Civic Orchestra season is generously sponsored by Lori Julian for the Julian Family Foundation, which also provides major funding for the Civic Fellowship program.
The Civic Orchestra of Chicago acknowledges support from the Illinois Arts Council.
Jessie
Montgomery Host, Violinist, Composer, and Lead Mentor
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 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-inResidence.
A founding member of PUBLIQuartet and 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. At the heart of Montgomery’s work is a deep sense of community enrichment and a desire to create opportunities for young artists and underrepresented composers to broaden audience experiences in classical music spaces.
Delaney Baeza
The Chicago Academy for the Arts
Delaney Baeza is a high school composer based in Chicago and is currently studying piano and composition at the Chicago Academy for the Arts. She will be attending the Jacobs School of Music at Indiana University next year to continue her studies in music composition.
Delaney is interested in exploring texture and minimalist ideas in her music and strongly values collaboration. She has worked with several Chicago-based ensembles, including the Nois Saxophone Quartet and Fonema Consort, among others. These experiences have shaped her interest in writing for performers and exploring different approaches to experimental notation. Her music continues to develop through collaboration and performance-based exploration.
Wren Page Wheaton North High School
Wren Page is a seventeen-year-old cellist and composer. She is a junior at Wheaton North High School, and an award-winning composer. She studies composition with Dr. Xavier Beteta at Wheaton College. Her compositions have won national and state level awards in the PTA Reflections Program,
the Illinois Music Educators Competition, and the Music Teachers National Association competition. Wren studies cello with Carol Ourada and is a member of the Naperville Youth Symphony Orchestra with Kimberlie Richter. At school, she participates in Sinfonia 2 orchestra with Grace Mayell and has also been in the ILMEA district 9 orchestra for the past six years, and Illinois Allstate Honors Orchestra since ninth grade.
C. Iain Blair
Jones College Prep
C. Iain Blair, age seventeen, is a composer who lives in the South Shore. His compositional voice is influenced by the classical idiom, incorporating new elements from the wide variety of musical ideas he encounters. He is a junior at Jones College Prep in the South Loop and is on the track and cross-country teams. In addition to composing, he engages in the study of piano and violin, the latter of which he plays in his school orchestra as well as the Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestras.
Amber Dong Adlai E. Stevenson High School
Amber Dong is a student at Adlai E. Stevenson High School, where they are a flutist in the school wind ensemble, which has performed in venues such as Naperville’s Wentz Hall. They are actively involved in the marching band and several chamber ensembles in addition to being a member of the Tri-M Music Honor Society. From a young age, they developed a love of music through piano study, which has fostered a continued interest in contrapuntal textures, and their exploration of their Chinese heritage has engendered a fascination with the colors and textures of world music. This has inspired an emergent approach to composition, with the goal of uniting independent, equally significant parts together while pushing the boundaries of standard instrumentation and tonality. Outside of music, Amber can be found learning obscure words of Brobdingnagian size, writing poetry, doing math with inch-long pencil stubs, or acting in PAnderson Theatre, where they have won many Golden Panda Awards.
Christopher Mertz Adlai E. Stevenson High School
Christopher Mertz, age fifteen, is a composer, bassist, and historically-informed performer based in the Chicago area. As a soloist, he studies
with Chicago Symphony bassist Ian Hallas and has been honored at many competitions, including the International Society of Bassists Competition, Crain-Maling Foundation CSO Young Artists Competition, and O’Malley Foundation competition. As an orchestral performer, Mertz serves as a bassist in the National Youth Orchestra of the United States of America. He also performs with Midwest Young Artists Conservatory Symphony Orchestra and the semi-professional Highland Park Strings. As an early music enthusiast, he studies viola de gamba with Katherine Shuldiner and performs with the Stevenson Baroque Ensemble. A recent highlight was his orchestral premiere of Michał Bylina’s baroque-inspired Double Bass Concerto no. 1 in D minor. As a composer, Christopher places emphasis upon expanding the double bass repertoire, particularly in solo and chamber settings. He also takes a keen interest in the neoclassical tradition. In his free time, Christopher enjoys planning increasingly fantastical public transport-based travel itineraries, collecting business cards, studying the idiosyncrasies of William Jennings Bryan, and acting in PAnderson Theatre, where he has won many Golden Panda Awards.
Thomas Muñoz Amundsen High School
Thomas Muñoz was born in the lush and mountainous region of Boyacá, Colombia. Surrounded by family, Muñoz’s uncle Sebastian instilled in him a deep love for books, poetry, and music. From hearing the first sounds of the tambor alegre, Muñoz knew he wanted to become a musician. Coming to the United States in 2022, Muñoz finally began his own musical path, taking up the cello at Roald Amundsen High School on Chicago’s North side. Practicing after school and at lunch, music became a source of joy amongst feelings of homesickness and displacement. Only a year into musical study, Muñoz created an arrangement of Lucho Bermudez’ “Colombia, Tierra Querida” (Colombia, Beloved Land) for string orchestra, which was performed by his high school orchestra. Passionate about the cello and classical music, Muñoz strives to infuse his compositions with the rich musical traditions of Colombia.
Musicians from the Civic Orchestra of Chicago
Ken-David Masur Principal Conductor
The Robert Kohl and Clark Pellett Principal Conductor Chair
Ebedit Fonseca, Pavlo Kyryliuk, Justine Teo* Violins
August DuBeau, Sava Velkoff* Violas
David Caplan, Buianto Lkhasaranov Cellos
Albert Daschle, Tony Sanfilippo Basses
Daniel Fletcher Flute
* Civic Orchestra Fellow
Orlando Salazar* Oboe
Elizabeth Kapitaniuk Clarinet & Bass Clarinet
Hamed Barbarji* Trumpet
Eden Stargardt* Horn
Cameron Marquez* Percussion
Daniel Szefer Piano