Toni-Marie Montgomery

Background

DMA, University of Michigan

Toni-Marie Montgomery is the second recipient of the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in piano chamber music and accompanying from the University of Michigan. She also received the Master of Music degree from the University of Michigan. Montgomery graduated magna cum laude from the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts.

Montgomery was a founding member of the Black Music Repertory Ensemble of Columbia College of Chicago. This fifteen-member ensemble specialized in performing works by Black composers and promoted appreciation for the Black musical heritage. Montgomery continues to give recitals and has performed throughout the United States and in Austria, Brazil, Hawaii, Poland, Lithuania, and Latvia. Recent chamber music concerts include performances in Evanston, Ann Arbor and Los Angeles with cellist Anthony Elliott.

In 2003 Montgomery was named dean of the Bienen School of Music. As Northwestern’s first African American dean and the first female dean of its music school, Montgomery launched a host of initiatives that increased the Bienen School’s visibility and enhanced its status as one of the nation’s top music schools. She stepped down as dean in 2023 after a distinguished two-decade tenure.

Montgomery previously served as professor and dean of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Kansas; director of the School of Music at Arizona State University; associate dean of the College of Fine Arts at Arizona State University; assistant dean of the School of Fine Arts at the University of Connecticut; and assistant director of the School of Music and artistic director of the Music Performance Institute at Western Michigan University.

Toni-Marie Montgomery currently serves as secretary of the Gateways Music Festival Board of Directors. She is a member of the boards of trustees of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association and the Ravinia Festival.