Composer/Violinist Jessie Montgomery and The Everything Band Perform at Kaufman Music Center – May 1

Assembled and Led by Montgomery, The Everything Band is an
All-Star Collective Comprised of Jannina Norpoth, Gabriel Cabezas,
Eleonore Oppenheim, Allison Loggins-Hull, Lynn Ligammari,
Pascal Le Boeuf, and Michael W. Davis

Performing Selections From Montgomery’s Everything, All at Once,
Composed for the Group, Plus New Works from Band Members
and Special Music School Students

“Montgomery and The Everything Band get it, bringing together musicians from clearly demarcated schools of study to bend genre until it – and the rules contained within it – break.”

– I Care If You Listen

www.jessiemontgomery.com

New York, NY (April 13, 2026) – On Friday, May 1, 2026 at 7:30 PM, Kaufman Music Center presents The Everything Band, an all-star collective led by GRAMMY® Award-winning composer, violinist, and educator Jessie Montgomery alongside violinist Jannina Norpoth, cellist Gabriel Cabezas, flutist Allison Loggins-Hull, saxophonist Lynn Ligammari, pianist Pascal LeBoeuf, bassist Eleonore Oppenheim, and percussionist Michael W. Davis.

The performance includes selections from Montgomery’s 2025 suite Everything, All at Once, composed for the group and premiered at Montgomery’s Miller Theatre Composer Portrait. In addition to movements from Everything, All at Once, the program also includes new contributions from band members such as Pascal LeBoeuf and Allison Loggins-Hull and new work by students from Kaufman Music Center’s High School who Montgomery worked with.

“I formed The Everything Band in September 2021, supported by an Artist Residency at Montclair State – during a rare window of time where I could gather this exceptional group of musicians – with the idea to expand my practice and return to the improvisational freedom of my youth, not bound by strict notational conventions, elaborate chains of production, or expectations of a certain sound,” Montgomery says. “At the same time, it’s exciting to bring large orchestral concepts into a big band arrangement and take advantage of polished textures and overtones, allowing this new assembly to refresh our musical perspectives. To establish a spirit of openness at the heart of TEB, I assembled a group of people I’ve known and worked with over the past few decades (some of us go as far back as high school) who embody qualities I admire in music and life, and share a rich history of mutual creative influence.”

The Everything Band operates as a collective, with a mix of songs and improvisational concepts contributed by individual band members, musicians who are also composers and performers of varied musical styles. The music is created by experimentation/improvisation and open-ended form, with band members bringing their individual expertise in various styles and techniques to the collective, resulting in a sound that reflects a composite of their influences. 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. The Everything Band’s debut at Miller Theater in April of 2025 was met with a warm and enthusiastic crowd and rave reviews. The Everything Band has held residency at Montclair State University and has more upcoming projects in the works.

Event Information:
May 1, 2026 at 7:30 PM EST
The Everything Band at Kaufman Music Center
Merkin Hall | New York, NY
Tickets: $30
Link: https://kaufmanmusiccenter.org/mch/event/jessie-montgomery-the-everything-band/

Program:
Jessie Montgomery – Everything, All at Once (2025)
Other Works to be Announced 

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. Montgomery is 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. She is a 2025-26 Artist-in-Residence at Kaufman Music Center.

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. In response to Montgomery’s GRAMMY®-winning work, Rounds (2021), San Francisco’s NPR station KQED stated: “This is what classical music needs.” 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.

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 previously served on the Composition and Music Technology faculty at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.

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.

For more information, visit www.jessiemontgomery.com

*Photo Credit: Cory Turnbaugh