JESSIE MONTGOMERY is an American violinist and composer, named as 2025 Classical Woman of the Year by Performance Today. Her Five Freedom Songs were conceived in 2017-18 in collaboration with soprano Julia Bullock. Montgomery noted that “we wanted to create a song cycle that honors our shared African-American heritage and the tradition of the Negro spiritual, while also experimenting with non-traditional stylistic contexts.” The songs in this cycle are sourced from the historical anthology Slave Songs of the United States, published in 1867.
