Performance Today has selected Grammy-winning performer and composer Jessie Montgomery as the 2025 Classical Woman of the Year. This prestigious title is awarded to exceptional women who have made significant contributions to the world of classical music and who provide inspiration for our listeners.
"I’m thrilled that Jessie Montgomery is our 2025 Performance Today Classical Woman of the Year,” said Fred Child, host and senior editor of the program. “She is a multidimensional musical artist, composer, violinist and educator whose work is having a tremendous positive impact on today's musical scene and on the next generation of musicians and citizens.
“She is a prolific composer of music rooted in her personal and cultural history,” he added, “and creates works that help us understand ourselves and reflect in meaningful ways on the times we live in."
Montgomery also is the founder of the Young Composers Initiative in Chicago, supporting emerging teenage artists. Her 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 music has been described as “turbulent, wildly colorful and exploding with life” by the Washington Post and is performed regularly by leading orchestras, ensembles and soloists around the world.
In June, she 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, she is a frequent and highly engaged collaborator with performing musicians, composers, choreographers, playwrights, poets and visual artists alike.
At the heart of her 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.
She has been recognized with many awards and fellowships, including the Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, the Sphinx Medal of Excellence and Sphinx Virtuosi Composer-in-Residence, the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation, and Musical America's 2023 Composer of the Year. She serves on the Composition and Music Technology faculty at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.
The recognition of Montgomery as the 2025 Classical Woman of the Year highlights not only her individual achievements, but also the importance of supporting and celebrating women in the arts.
Montgomery will be recognized on the March 31 episode of Performance Today, including a conversation with Child about her career and accomplishments.
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