American Public Media Announces 2025 Classical Woman of the Year

Composer and violinist Jessie Montgomery has received the honor

The national classical music radio program YourClassical's Performance Today has announced that it has selected composer Jessie Montgomery as its Classical Woman of the Year for 2025. The award recognizes a woman who has made a significant contribution to the industry and who is an inspiration to listeners.

A composer, violinist, and educator, Montgomery has won a GRAMMY Award for her work — which often centers on themes of social justice, the Black diasporic experience, and its foundation in American music. For the last three years, she has served as the Chicago Symphony's Mead Composer-in-Residence.

As a performer, she is a founding member of PUBLIQuartet and a former member of the Catalyst Quartet. She recently appeared as the featured soloist in Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra in a recording and touring project with Third Coast Percussion, to which she also contributed a newly-commissioned percussion quartet.

Montgomery has held 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 is currently on the Composition and Music Technology faculty at Northwestern University’s Bienen School of Music.

As part of her award, Montgomery will appear on an episode of Performance Today on March 31, 2025.

"I’m thrilled that Jessie Montgomery is our 2025 Performance Today Classical Woman of the Year," said Fred Child, host and senior editor of Performance Today. "She is a multi-dimensional 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, and creates works that help us understand ourselves and reflect in meaningful ways on the times we live in."

"She is equally committed to education, as founder of the Young Composers Initiative in Chicago, supporting emerging teenage artists. Her unique combination of musical artistry, curation, creation, and engagement brightens and inspires our world. It’s with great pleasure that we recognize Jessie Montgomery with this well-deserved award."