February 25, 2010, Greenville, NC by Judith N. Barber

The Imani Winds swept through the NewMusic@ECU Festival on February 24 and 25, capturing the respect and affection of students and faculty during master classes and student composition readings, and displaying warmth and virtuosity at their concert at the A.J. Fletcher Recital Hall on Thursday night, February 25.

The first work on the program, “Red Clay and Mississippi Delta” (2009), composed by group founder and flautist Valerie Coleman, showcased…

Sunday, February 21, 2010

…

“From the first to the last sounding notes both ensembles played brilliantly, with vigor, dedication, and flair. The caliber of musicianship was only part of the remarkable artistic parcel on display Wednesday night. Most impressive was the collective grace emanating from the players from the moment they walked on stage, which then lingered in the hall, like warmth, well after the concert’s end.”

Imani Winds, a wind quintet whose stylish grace and charm match the high quality of sound produced from their instruments, hold a substantial pedigree among fellow artists, audiences, and critics alike.

…when the Imani Winds took the stage at Beloit College in Beloit, Wisconsin, they didn’t need drums or pianos or anything else. They created a dazzling landscape of color, and it came from the inside out.

September 23, 2009

By John Kenyon

With all due respect to the entire history of classical woodwind music, rarely does someone utter phrases like “lit a fire” or “scary” or “stretched to the edge of our imagination” when discussing it.

That, then, is the first indication that Friday’s concert featuring Imani Winds and vibraphonist Stefon Harris will not be your typical night of polite chamber music.

Anyone familiar with Imani Winds already knows this. The quintet formed in part because…

By Barrymore Laurence Scherrer

May 13, 2009

Say “chamber music” to most people, and the string quartet is probably the first image to spring to mind. Far less familiar is the string quartet’s counterpart, the wind quintet. The former is made up of two violins, a viola and a cello. On the other hand the wind quintet normally consists of four woodwinds — flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon — and that most subtle of brass instruments,…

Turner McCullough Jr., Clarksville Online

Five classical music instruments that normally play supporting or minor accent roles in classical music showcases were themselves given the star treatment in last night’s musical extravaganza. The Clarksville Community Concert Series presented The Imani Winds Quintet to Clarksville in a dazzling display of sounds and tones not typical to the classical music lovers ear, but nonetheless endearing and wondrous.

Wind instruments don’t usually spring to mind when one thinks of classical music’s big draw.…

SOUNDS OF WOODWINDS, CALLING FOR CHANGE

“In ‘Afro’, the jaunty first movement of the sultry Concerto for Wind Quintet by Valerie Coleman, the music evokes Afro-Cuban song and percussion with wailing melodies that dance over ostinato patterns for horn and bassoon. This vibrant work illustrates several of the aims of Imani Winds, the woodwind quintet Ms. Coleman founded in 1997, which include expanding the limited repertory for woodwind quintet and exploring non-European traditions.”

“This Christmas successfully marries classical with jazz and world influences, creating the most marvelous musical meld. The song selection ranges from the seriously sacred to the playfully secular, and all pieces are familiar favorites. Imani Winds attacks the gamut with ease, and all tracks shine.
Terrific!”

“When the Imani Winds joined later, a stronger aspect of organisation surfaced. Passages of improvisation were separated by arching arabesque melodies and coloured with nuanced harmonies in a thoroughly entrancing, vividly captivating artistic soundscape.”

NEW MUSIC BY SIERRA SHARES STAGE WITH JANACEK AND SCHUMANN AT CHAMBER MUSIC NORTHWEST

“As the program notes pointed out, this work begins as a nonet, then is directed toward two separate ensembles, and ends up presenting the musicians as virtuoso soloists. That, of course, can be accomplished when it is played by two virtuoso ensembles, the Imani Winds and the Miami String Quartet. They displayed a wonderful way of transcending this difficult work and giving the audience an exciting journey into a new soundscape.”

WAYNE SHORTER TUNES EXPLODE WITH JOY IN SAN FRANCISCO

“And there he was – 50 years after joining Maynard Ferguson’s big band -seated alongside the five Imanis in his own little big band, joking with Imani flutist Valerie Coleman and clearly being inspired by the ensemble’s high-spirited response to his compositions.”

COLEMAN DEBUTS A NEW CONCERTO

“Quite aside from its novelty of genre, though, Coleman’s concerto is a wonderfully substantive piece. Her expansive sense of melody evokes the best in movie music. But what’s striking about Imani is that each player is polished and virtuosic.  In an arrangement of Ravel’s Le Tombeau de Couperin by horn legend Mason Jones, each player in the ensemble was a marvelously agile proxy for a full orchestra.”

“Together: the place (the big auditorium at Cite de la Musique in Paris, a stage open to classical and other types of music, particularly jazz) + the music (arranged and composed by Wayne Shorter) + the musicians (Wayne’s quartet with the classical woodwind quintet Imani Winds) + the audience (long standing ovation, collective happiness, not one bad word leaving).”

Chick Corea’s blog “Notes from the Road” describes Imani Winds’ performance with Wayne Shorter in Marciac, France, August 23, 2007

“Then his chamber music was performed by the Imani Winds, a New York wind ensemble that absolutely killed Wayne’s beautiful new chamber music written for the ensemble. (‘to kill’ in musician talk means to play at the top level of creative performance – to sound great, astounding, etc).”

“Her spirit infuses the entire disc, in both the playful rapport among the members (including Pittsburgh native Monica Ellis, bassoonist) and the convivial compositions, such as Henri Lemarchand’s ‘Don’t Touch My Tomatoes’ and Imani horn player Jeff Scott’s ‘The Beautiful Siren as Comedian.’”

NOTHING TYPICAL IN THESE DAZZLING SHOWS

“But the best part of the collaboration was the way Shorter exploited both colouration of the Imani Winds and the rhythmic potential of his own quartet to ensure the music built to an exhilarating climax.”

BLOWING HOT AND COOL

“The innovative quintet IMANI WINDS pushes the accepted boundaries of it’s genre with a work influenced by sultry entertainer Josephine Baker.”

MONTREAL JAZZ FESTIVAL: UNEXPECTED 101

“New York’s Imani Winds, who had opened the concert with a performance of Shorter’s Ravel-esque wind quintet, “Terra Incognita,” join the quartet for some intensely rhythmic and lushly-textured music which sounds like the score to the best film never made.”

“They are attractive, inventive and skillfully scored, and are welcome additions to the repertoire for wind quintet, even though their virtuosic demands will probably limit their performance to the most experienced professional ensembles.”

“The songs are a pure delight – the singer and players perform them with abandon and loads of flair. They are attractive, inventive and skillfully scored, and are welcome additions to the repertoire for wind quintet, even though their virtuosic demands will probably limit their performance to the most experienced professional ensembles.”

IMANI WINDS HITS ITS MARK ON “JOSEPHINE BAKER”
“If it’s possible for a classically trained wind quintet to rock the house, Imani Winds blows the roof off.”

ANOTHER “DANCING WITH THE STARS

“The Imani Winds is an ebullient ensemble, and their giddiness among themselves and between the period pieces spilled over into the often-peppy polyphony of their music. Vocalist Rene Marie was equally adept in her portrait of Baker, and perhaps most effective when she sang in French. Her mambo number was especially delightful…”

STIRRING SOUNDS FROM EXPATRIATES AND EXILES

“Ellis’s deep, reedy bassoon tone and Scott’s warm horn anchored the ensemble’s big sound, while their extroverted phrasing was equally fluent in avant-garde music.”