Creating Space for Young Composers at the CSO

The pathway into composition can feel lonely. Composers often find themselves mingling more often with notation software, sketches, recordings, and ideas that struggle to leave their studios, bedrooms, or even classrooms. The Young Composers Initiative, a program of the Negaunee Music Institute at the CSO, offers something different. At Symphony Center, those ideas are nurtured, challenged, refined, and ultimately brought to life by professional musicians.

On June 12, audiences in Buntrock Hall will hear the culmination of months of collaboration and coaching as six student composers present original chamber works performed by Civic Orchestra of Chicago musicians. Hosted by composer and former Mead Composer-in-Residence Jessie Montgomery, the finale concert gives a glimpse into the future of contemporary classical music through the voices of young artists already shaping their own musical languages.

That idea of self-expression sits at the center of Montgomery’s vision for the program. Created during her residency with the CSO, the Young Composers Initiative was modeled in part after her own experience as a high school composer in New York, where she participated in Lincoln Center’s Composer’s Apprentice Program.

“I wanted to pass down that opportunity to someone else,” Montgomery said. “This was the perfect opportunity to do that.”

Since January, each student composer has worked closely with Montgomery through individual lessons, reading sessions, rehearsals, and workshops. Alongside artistic mentorship, students receive practical experience inside a professional musical environment. They learn how to communicate with performers, shape rehearsals, speak publicly about their work, and hear their ideas transformed from notation into sound.

For Montgomery, these instances of realization are the core of the experience.

“Teaching is about giving a space for a student to express themselves,” she said. “To come up with an idea and realize it and make it into a reality.”

“Teaching is about giving a space for a student to express themselves,” she said. “To come up with an idea and realize it and make it into a reality.” -- Jessie Montgomery

Programs like this also confront a reality that is commonly unspoken in classical music: access. Young composers enter the field with vastly different levels of opportunity, resources, and exposure. Some students arrive having already worked with private teachers or youth orchestras. Others are encountering a professional composition environment for the first time.

Montgomery acknowledged that disparity directly in our conversation, noting how geography and socioeconomic access can shape a student’s artistic opportunities long before they apply to a program like this.

This year’s cohort reflects the breadth of musical life across the Chicago area. Students come from schools including Jones College Prep in the South Loop, Amundsen High School on the city’s North Side, and Adlai E. Stevenson High School in the northern suburbs. Their musical backgrounds are equally varied. Some are deeply embedded in youth orchestra culture, while others developed their voices via school ensembles, independent exploration, or cultural traditions rooted outside the Western classical canon.

What the Young Composers Initiative supplies is not simply instruction. It offers validation. Students are given the rare opportunity to hear professional musicians engage seriously with their ideas. Their music is rehearsed, revised, recorded, and performed with care. For many young composers, that kind of artistic affirmation can be life-changing.

Montgomery emphasized that part of the program’s purpose is to help students see themselves in the profession they may aspire to enter. “It’s important for them to see how it’s done,” she said. “You sort of create a professional environment for them to work in.”

This year’s concert program displays a striking range of influences and compositional approaches. Delaney Baeza explores texture, minimalism, and experimental notation. Amber Dong draws inspiration from contrapuntal writing and Chinese musical traditions. Thomas Muñoz channels the sounds and memories of Colombia into his work, while Christopher Mertz studies the possibilities of the double bass through a neoclassical lens.

The resulting program comes across less like a single stylistic statement and more like a collection of distinct artistic perspectives. That diversity of voice is something Montgomery believes is increasingly commonplace among younger composers.

“...there’s this thing about myself and my history that I’m curious about — I’d like to explore through music,” she said, describing a recurring impulse she sees in her students. “I see that a lot now.”

The program does not ask students to conform to a narrow definition of classical music. Instead, Montgomery encourages them to follow their instincts, question inherited rules, and trust their creative impulses.

“The challenge is always to follow your impulses about music, which may not fit into any prescribed rule,” she explained. “You’re using the system to give you knowledge of what’s possible, but you’re not beholden to it.”

That philosophy feels especially resonant at a moment when classical music institutions still wrestle with questions of relevance, representation, and cultural ownership. Programs like the Young Composers Initiative create space for students to imagine themselves not as visitors to the field, but as contributors to its future.

Many of the students are already writing music that addresses identity, memory, politics, nature, and belonging. Montgomery noted that young composers today are often seeking ways to express themselves authentically through music, particularly in a world shaped by constant visibility and self-awareness.

That spirit can already be heard in the titles of the June 12 program: mesh and misalignment; Dream of a Butterfly; Organs of Chicago; flâneur, obscured; and Tierra y despojo. Together, they suggest works rooted in the exploration of city, self, memory, and sound.

The Initiative also creates something many composers need but rarely discuss openly: community. Composition can be isolating, especially for teenagers navigating competitive artistic spaces. Through rehearsals, workshops, and conversations, students encounter peers who understand both the vulnerability and excitement of creating original work.

“I hope they get to know each other first of all as peers,” Montgomery said. “And understand more about what it’s like.”

For the students involved, the impact of hearing their music performed professionally may reach far beyond this singular concert. Some will continue toward conservatories and university composition programs. Others may carry these experiences into entirely different futures. Either way, the experience leaves them with something abiding: the recognition that their ideas deserve to be taken seriously.

At the end of the rehearsal and performance process, Montgomery said, students often arrive at a simple but powerful realization: “Oh my gosh, I can do this.”

That may be the program’s greatest achievement. The Young Composers Initiative isn’t just developing future composers. It is helping young artists recognize that their perspectives, histories, and curiosities have value within classical music today.