Electric

Grammy award winning composer, Jessie Montgomery’s “Voodoo Dolls” is a movement of a larger suite that was commissioned by the JUMP! Dance company of Rhode Island. Each movement in this suite depicts a different traditional children’s doll including Russian dolls, rag dolls, marionettes, Barbie and Voodoo Dolls. “Voodoo Dolls” is a wild frenzy that will leave you invigorated. Find out more about Jessie’s works at jessiemontgomery.com.

Jessie is the current “Composer in Residence” of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Read this article about how she is involved in programming contemporary works for the CSO. “Can Classical Music Really be Inclusive? Composer Jessie Montgomery thinks so”.

American Composer Florence Price was the first African American Female composer to have a work performed by the Chicago Symphony during the 1933 World’s Fair. Although she was recognized nationally during her lifetime, her works stopped being performed after her death until they were discovered in 2009 in an abandoned house in Illinois. Musicologist Michael Cooper was responsible for rediscovering some of her missing works. He expected to find works of varying quality but says “What I found instead was one piece after another that was just stunning in its originality, invention, tunefulness, harmonic richness and instrumentation — everything.” Read more about her rediscovery here: Florence Price finally receives her moment on the music world-stage.

Andre Jolivet was a French composer, painter and cellist who was constantly exploring different compositional styles. His goal as a composer was to reunite his audiences with the mystical and spiritual aspects of music. Jolivet’s “Pastorales de Noel” is a hauntingly beautiful composition that sets magical Christmas scenes in four movements titled The Star, The Magi, The Virgin and the Child, and The Dancing Shepherds.

The flute was one of his favorite instruments. In his own words:
“The flute is a musical instrument par excellence, in that enlivened by breath by the deepest outstreaming of the human being, it fills notes with both that which is corporeal and cosmic within us.”

In the composer’s own words:
“Music possesses much richer means of expression and it is a more subtle medium for translating the 1000 shifting moments of the feelings of the soul.”