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Press Releases
Composer Jessie Montgomery Announces International Tour of New Cello Concerto for Abel Selaocoe
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Composer Jessie Montgomery Announces
International Tour of New Cello Concerto,
These Righteous Paths, Featuring Abel Selaocoe
Co-Commissioned by 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
March 20 – Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin [World Premiere]
March 29 – Klarafestival
April 17 – National Forum of Music in Wroclaw
May 14-16 – Toronto Symphony Orchestra [North American Premiere]
“One of the most distinctive and communicative voices in the US,
as a player and a creator.” – BBC Music Magazine
New York, NY (February 9, 2026) – GRAMMY® Award-winning composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery, whose music has been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” by The Washington Post, announces a new concerto for solo cello and orchestra, These Righteous Paths. This new work, created for and in collaboration with South African cellist Abel Selaocoe, is part of a series of pieces inspired by the plays and poems of Montgomery’s late mother, Robbie McCauley, a leading figure in the Black theater movement in post-Civil Rights era America. These Righteous Paths contains three movements: All the Ancestors and I; Another Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South; and A New Song.
The world premiere of These Righteous Paths will take place on March 20, 2026 at 8:00 PM at Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin in Berlin, performed by Selaocoe and conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero, kicking off an international tour of the piece. On March 29, 2026 at 7:00 PM, the piece will be performed by Selaocoe with the Brussels Philharmonic at the Klarafestival in Belgium, conducted by Kazushi Ono. Then, on April 17, 2026 at 7:00 PM, JoAnn Falletta conducts Selaocoe’s performance at the Narodowe Forum Muzyki (National Forum of Music in Wroclaw). The North American premiere of These Righteous Paths takes place from May 14 to 16, 2026 at the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Gustavo Gimeno.
Future presenters and co-commissioners include the U.K. premiere by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Gianandrea Noseda; the U.S. premiere by the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center in New York City led by Jonathon Heyward as part of Summer for the City; and the Aspen Music Festival and School on August 9, 2026 at 4:00 PM, all in summer 2026. Additional performances will take place in the 2026-2027 season at the Oregon Symphony on October 3, 2026 and October 4, 2026. A performance with Utah Symphony and the NTR Zaterdagmatinee will occur in the 2027-2028 season.
These Righteous Paths is an exploration of Montgomery’s navigation of her grief after losing her mother five years ago. “I find myself absorbed by the sentiments in her words, comforted and inspired by them, and realizing the inherent music within them,” Montgomery explains. “Reflecting inheritances from the African diaspora and its influence on the Black American experience, it is from these ancestral traces that I shape a living soundscape, one that honors what has been passed down while allowing the music to conjure new hopes and memories. I am inspired by the Sankofa image, a Ghanaian concept and symbol that describes the way we must look back in order to go forward. The figure is depicted by a bird with its head tilted backward, as if calling to the past for confirmation to take flight. Thus, there are extended passages that are inspired by the cascade and cadence of birds in flight.”
Montgomery notes, “This collaboration with Abel [Selaocoe] represents a journey through worlds past and present, and is just as much inspired by McCauley’s poems as it is by his unique palette of cellistic and vocal capabilities. The orchestration traverses many stylistic influences that I associate with Abel’s voice—baroque continuo, song-writing, Afro-centric rhythms and melodies, virtuoso classical performance, and improvisation, to name a few. The form struggles to be contained yet relaxes into grooves and sometimes uncannily familiar melodies. While writing, I often found myself asking, ‘Have I written this before?’ Sometimes I think it is simply confirmation from past lives, ancestral nudges forward, as if to say: ‘Yes, we are here. Keep going. You must keep going.’”
Tour Information:
Friday, March 20, 2026 at 8:00 PM
DSO Berlin Presents Abel Selaocoe
Philharmonie Berlin | Berlin, Germany
Link: www.dso-berlin.de/de/konzert/guerrero-casual-concert-philharmonie-berlin-20-03-2026/
Program:
Jessie Montgomery –These Righteous Paths [World Premiere]
1. All the Ancestors and I
2. Another Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South
3. A New Song
Abel Selaocoe, Cello
Giancarlo Guerrero, Conductor
Sunday, March 29, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Klara Festival Presents Brussels Philharmonic, Kazushi Ono & Abel Selaocoe
Flagey, Studio 4 | Brussels, Belgium
Link: https://klarafestival.brussels/en/concert/29-03-2026/brussels-philharmonic-kazushi-ono-abel-selaocoe
Program:
Florence Price – Ethiopia's Shadow in America
Carlos Simon – Songs of Separation
1. The Garden
2. Burning Hell
3. We Are All the Same
Leonard Bernstein – Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
Jessie Montgomery –These Righteous Paths [Belgium Premiere]
1. All the Ancestors and I
2. Another Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South
3. A New Song
Florence Price – Symphony No. 3 in C Minor
Jessie Montgomery – Coincident Dances
Kazushi Ono, Conductor
Abel Selaocoe, Cello
Marta Fontanals-Simmons, Mezzo-soprano
Friday, April 17, 2026 at 7:00 PM
Abel Selaocoe & NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic
National Forum of Music, ORLEN Main Hall | Wroclaw, Poland
Link: www.nfm.wroclaw.pl/en/component/nfmcalendar/event/12588
Program:
Jessie Montgomery – These Righteous Paths [Poland Premiere]
1. All the Ancestors and I
2. Another Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South
3. A New Song
Astor Piazzolla – Tangazo
Leonard Bernstein – Symphonic Dances from West Side Story
JoAnn Falletta, Conductor
Abel Selaocoe, Cello
Thursday, May 14, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Saturday, May 16, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Toronto Symphony Orchestra Presents Epic Wagner—Legends & Lore
Roy Thomson Hall | Toronto, Canada
Link: www.tso.ca/concerts-and-events/events/epic-wagner
Program:
Jessie Montgomery – These Righteous Paths [North American Premiere/TSO Co-commission]
1. All the Ancestors and I
2. Another Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South
3. A New Song
Richard Wagner – Overture to The Flying Dutchman
Richard Wagner – Suite from Götterdämmerung
Gustavo Gimeno, Conductor
Abel Selaocoe, Cello
Sunday, August 9, 2026 at 4:00 PM
Aspen Music Festival and School Presents Festival Orchestra: Mahler's First Symphony
Klein Music Tent | Aspen, CO
Link: www.aspenmusicfestival.com/events/calendar/aspen-festival-orchestra-12
Program:
Carlos Simon – Fate Now Conquers
Jessie Montgomery – These Righteous Paths
1. All the Ancestors and I
2. Another Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South
3. A New Song
Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 1 in D major
Gustavo Gimeno, Conductor
Abel Selaocoe, Cello
Saturday, October 3, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Sunday, October 4, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Oregon Symphony Presents Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 5
Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall | Portland, OR
Link: www.orsymphony.org/productions/2627/tchaikovskys-symphony-no-5
Program:
Mikhail Glinka - Overture to Ruslan and Ludmilla
Jessie Montgomery – These Righteous Paths [U.S. West Coast Premiere]
1. All the Ancestors and I
2. Another Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South
3. A New Song
Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – Symphony No. 5 in E minor, Op. 64
David Danzmayr, Conductor
Abel Selaocoe, Cello
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. 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. She was named Performance Today's 2025 Classical Woman of the Year.
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. 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 in 2024.”
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; a new work co-commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, Bravo! Vail Music Festival, and the Sphinx Organization; 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. 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’s growing body of work includes solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works, as well as an opera in development with Lincoln Center Theater and The Metropolitan Opera, which explores family histories and the impact of her mother, playwright and actress Robbie McCauley, on the American historical narrative. Montgomery’s music has been heard on global stages across the US, Canada, Central America, Europe, and Asia, from the Hong Kong Cultural Center to the BBC Proms, Elbphilharmonie, Hollywood Bowl, and Carnegie Hall. Recent 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 I was waiting for the echo of a better day, a site-specific collaboration with Bard SummerScape and Pam Tanowitz Dance (2021).
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. She serves on the Composition and Music Technology faculty at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
For more information, visit www.jessiemontgomery.com
*Photo Credit: Jiyang Chen
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