Among the many highlights of Summer for the City are the performances of the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center under Ren\u00e9e and Robert Belfer Music and Artistic Director Jonathon Heyward, who has made programming contemporary works\u2014including several commissions and premieres\u2014a hallmark of his leadership.<\/p>\n
This summer\u2019s orchestra concerts feature modern works by composers ranging from Unsuk Chin (July 10-11) and Adolphus Hailstork (July 15) to Valentin Silvestrov (July 17\u201318), along with a world premiere by Hannah Ishizaki and New York premiere by Billy Childs (both on the August 7\u20138 closing night program) as well as a U.S. premiere by Jessie Montgomery, no stranger to Lincoln Center\u2019s stages ever since she was a composition student at The Juilliard School.<\/p>\n
Montgomery\u2019s These Righteous Paths\u00a0(July 31\u2013August 1), which had its world premiere in March in Berlin, is a Lincoln Center co-commission that finds the composer dealing with the death of her mother, Robbie McCauley, a leading figure in the Black theatre movement, in 2021. Although\u00a0ostensibly a cello concerto\u2014the soloist is the South African cellist, Abel Selaocoe\u2014it\u2019s quite unlike the usual works one hears for that instrument and orchestra.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew I was going to work with Abel, so to get acquainted with his work, I went to see him perform in Norway,\u201d Montgomery explains. \u201cHe introduced a piece he was about to play about mothers, so I became interested in that sentiment. And the song he sang was so moving and beautiful, I wanted to participate in that aspect as well.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hearing Selaocoe sing led Montgomery to look at McCauley\u2019s archives to find texts that linked Selaocoe\u2019s South African heritage with her and her mother\u2019s Black American roots. \u201cThere\u2019s definitely a relationship between Black Americans to the African continent, and there\u2019s also a feeling of longing,\u201d Montgomery says. \u201cAbel\u2019s cultural reflections and my personal experiences after my mother died were connected.\u201d (Her working title for what would become These Righteous Paths was Mother Tongue, which had several connotations related to those connections.)<\/p>\n
The three movements of These Righteous Paths\u00a0\u2014\u201dAll the Ancestors and I\u201d; \u201cAnother Train Poem: Part 1, Georgia and the Foreman; Part 2, Up South\u201d; and \u201cA New Song\u201d\u2014all include McCauley\u2019s words as set by Montgomery for Selaocoe to sing. The composer also gave the movements a chronological storyline. \u201cFirst, there are ancestral incantations or messages; second, my mother\u2019s childhood, which is the present day of the piece; and third, a look into the future,\u201d she says. \u201cI used the imagery of the poems to guide the music.\u201d<\/p>\n
Selaocoe\u2019s ability to use his voice as well as his cello greatly informed the piece. \u201cI originally thought of it as a conventional cello concerto\u2014but how do you write a piece that multiple people can play?\u201d she says. \u201cThen I decided that writing it around Abel\u2019s facility to both sing and play was more compositionally interesting and freed me up more. I abandoned the idea that it\u2019s something that would work for any cellist.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Indeed, Selaocoe has played all performances of the premiere cycle so far, and he will also be the soloist for the U.S. premiere at David Geffen Hall July 31 and August 1 with the Festival Orchestra of Lincoln Center and Heyward, who has paired Montgomery\u2019s piece with two works suffused with maternal longing: William Grant Still\u2019s touching Mother and Child and Brahms\u2019 majestic Symphony No. 2, which includes his famous lullaby that\u2019s heard in the opening movement. Montgomery is pleased with the program\u2019s through-line. \u201cI think it\u2019s a very lovely instinct\u2014I love those kinds of programmatic connections,\u201d she says. \u201cMother and Child was the very first piece I learned by a Black composer, and I\u2019ve been influenced a lot by Brahms.\u201d<\/p>\n
Montgomery has been clearly touched by the emotional reaction to These Righteous Paths, especially when the cellist first vocalizes. \u201cIt\u2019s always a surprise to audiences when Abel starts singing in the middle of the first movement, but the response has been very positive, especially by those who are reflecting on their own loves and loss,\u201d she says. \u201cHearing from listeners who also share their tears is always very healing.\u201d<\/p>\n