Bard College Conservatory of Music Announces Composers in Residence

Composers Jessie Montgomery and Missy Mazzoli will join the faculty of Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York

Both composers will join the Bard Conservatory in the fall of 2022.

A recipient of the Leonard Bernstein Award from the ASCAP Foundation and the Sphinx Medal of Excellence, Jessie Montgomery is a composer, violinist, and educator. As an affiliate with the Sphinx Organization since 1999, she served as composer-in-residence for the organization's touring ensemble, Sphinx Virtuosi. She was also a founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet.

After graduating from the Juilliard School and New York University, she is a PhD Candidate in Music Composition at Princeton University. She currently serves as a professor of violin and composition at The New School and in May 2021, she began her three-year appointment as the Mead Composer-in-Residence with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra.

Her compositions include solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral works. Recent pieces include Shift, Change, Turn (2019) commissioned by the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Coincident Dances (2018) for the Chicago Sinfonietta, and Banner (2014). The latter of which was written to mark the 200th anniversary of “The Star-Spangled Banner” for The Sphinx Organization and the Joyce Foundation and was performed at the BBC Proms in August 2021.

Missy Mazzoli was nominated for a Grammy award in the category of “Best Classical Composition.” She has had her music performed by the Kronos Quartet, LA Opera, eighth blackbird, the BBC Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, Scottish Opera, etc.

She has previously served as the Mead Composer-in-Residence at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Composer-in-Residence with Opera Philadelphia. In 2018, along with Jeanine Tesori, she became the first woman to receive a main stage commission from the Metropolitan Opera.

She has recently composed new works for the National Symphony, Cincinnati Symphony, BBC Philharmonia, and the Bergen Symphony, among others.

In 2016, Mazzoli and composer Ellen Reid founded Luna Lab, a mentorship program for young female, non-binary and gender nonconforming composers created in partnership with the Kaufman Music Center.