The music is lively and descriptive, engaging and inventive with effective challenges for each part. Michael Montgomery is an experienced teacher and always creates exciting music which offers musical and technical challenges in equal measure.

“This island in the Black Sea, connected to the mainland by only a five-mile-wide isthmus, has always been somewhat of a mystery to me. The title and subject of this composition was inspired by my recent association with a refugee family from Crimea whose kindness and gentle way is a testimony to the resilience and determination of a people surviving in a land torn by civil strife and the brutality of war. I found this dichotomy to be reflected in the geography of the island’s south-eastern coast, where one discovers among rugged mountains reaching out toward the Black Sea quaint villages nestled between them and the water’s edge.”
[Michael Montgomery]