Listening Hours: Jessie Montgomery

We're pleased to invite you to join us at The Land School on Wednesday, May 20, from 6:30 PM to 7:30 PM, as our creative partner, D-Composed welcomes Jessie Montgomery to The Land School for a Listening Hours session.

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 pieces are performed regularly by leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists around the world.

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.

We look forward to welcoming you into an intimate sonic sharing as Montgomery reflects on the inspirations, compositions, and artistic inquiries that inform her prolific body of work today.

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Tickets are donation-based with a suggested donation of $15, and a pay-what-you-can ethos. Every dollar directly supports artists and ongoing music programming at The Land School. Space is limited.

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About Jessie Montgomery

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.
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.
Montgomery also assembled and primarily led The Everything Band, an All-Star cast of musicians working in the classical, jazz, and experimental music fields. TEB features: Jessie Montgomery, violin; Jannina Norpoth, violin; Gabriel Cabezas, cello; Eleonore Oppenheim, bass; Allison Loggins-Hull, flute; Lynn Ligammari, saxophone; Pascal Le Boeuf, piano; Grey Mcmurray, guitar; Jerome Jennings, drums.

TEB operates as a collective, with a mix of songs and improvisational concepts contributed by individual band members. Their debut at Miller Theater in April of 2025 was met with a warm and enthusiastic crowd and rave reviews. Created through group composition and improvisation, the music of TEB flows through multiple musical styles freely with dynamic clarity. Their singular sound and collective model reflect a new cosmos for concert music.

For more information, visit www.jessiemontgomery.com

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About D-Composed

Historians of art and culture may not currently take into full account that Black culture and creativity are a part of every musical institution's foundation that we currently see today. , a Black chamber music collective, exists to ensure that we never forget it. Led by their mission to uplift and empower society through the music of Black composers, this Chicago-based creative incubator serves as a bridge between the past and the present, connecting to the future of representation, music-centered experiences, and the communal power of Black composers and their lasting impact. For this collective, music evolves entertainment becoming a storytelling tool that educates and inspires.

D–COMPOSED /DEE-KUHM-POHZD/ – ADVERB - Our creative process that involves the breaking down of preconceived notions, barriers, and opinions of what people think classical music should be to re-writing our own narrative to reflect what the classical world could be.

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In Fall of 2025, D-Composed was named one of the inaugural creative partners-in-residence at Rebuild and Theaster Gates' latest space-based, land-art project, The Land School.

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About The Land School

The Land School, a new pedagogical platform at the site of the former St. Laurence Elementary School, proposes a radical model of artistic experimentation and archival stewardship, providing space, time, access, collaborative inquiry, process-driven programming, and performance, all led by an intergenerational cohort of artists, archivists, scholars, craftspeople, cultural workers, and creative organizations invested in culture as a service.

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The Land School's Policies and Protocol:

Upon arrival, please enter the building at the entrance on S. Dorchester Ave.

Ride sharing is encouraged as parking is limited. Please be sure to not block the entrances and exits of our neighbors.

Firearms on the premises are strictly prohibited.

No smoking, vaping or incense is permitted inside.

No pets are allowed.

No professional photo/video equipment allowed unless preapproved by Rebuild.

Please be mindful of your neighbors by respecting their personal space and bodily autonomy.

No violence - verbal or physical - will be tolerated. Any attendee creating an unsafe environment will be removed from the premises immediately, at the discretion of the Rebuild staff.

We take the safety our all of our guests seriously. If any guest is found violating these protocols, they may be escorted off the property immediately and will not be welcome to return.

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Notice of Photography and Videography

By entering The Land School, you acknowledge and consent to being photographed and/or videotaped. Images and recordings may be used for promotional, archival, or other purposes by the organizers. If you do not wish to be photographed or recorded, please notify a staff member upon arrival. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

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Thank you for reviewing and honoring The Land School's policies and protocol.

We look forward to welcoming you!

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