Imani Winds

The Imani Winds quintet has gained wide recognition for innovative programming that includes commissioned works with African American and Latin American elements as well as traditional wind repertory. The group has collaborated with jazz musicians as well as with classical composers. The Imani Winds were formed in 1997 by flutist Valerie Coleman, oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, clarinetist Mariam Adam, hornist Jeff Scott, and bassoonist Monica Ellis. As of the mid-2020s, the group consisted of flutist Brandon Patrick George, Spellman-Diaz, clarinetist Mark Dover, hornist Kevin Newton, and Ellis. The name "Imani" means faith in Swahili. The Imani Winds rapidly found success in its early years, appearing at Carnegie Hall in New York after winning the Artists International Annual Prize, and also performing at the Kennedy Center in Washington, the Ravinia Festival in suburban Chicago, and later, Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, among other prestigious venues. The group appeared on National Public Radio's Performance Today and CBS Television's The Bob Edwards Show, as well as in other national broadcast media. In 2002, the group released its debut album, Umoja. The Imani Winds has toured Australia and New Zealand, Brazil, and the Asian and European continents. The quintet has collaborated with or commissioned music from a culturally diverse group of composers, including jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer Paquito D'Rivera, composer Mohammed Fairouz, and baritone saxophonist, composer, and bandleader Fred Ho. The group moved to the Koch International label for The Classical Underground, which featured music by D'Rivera, Coleman, Astor Piazzolla, Lalo Schifrin, and other composers. The Imani Winds made several more albums for Koch, including a Christmas release, before moving to E1 in 2010. The group launched the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival in 2010, which also has an educational component. It released a wind arrangement of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring on EMI in 2013 before returning to E1 and releasing Startin' Sumthin' in 2016. In 2019, the group members formed the Imani Winds Foundation, which "will attempt to steer the national conversation on instrumental music by commissioning composers of new music, training and mentoring the next generations of musicians, and implementing projects that highlight and strengthen the rich diversity of chamber music." The quintet has been active in the recording studio, releasing the album Bruits on the Bright Shiny Things label in 2021 and Passion for Bach and Coltrane in 2023 on its own Imani Winds label. Among the Imani Winds' honors was induction into the classical music section of the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C., which the group considers its greatest accolade.
© James Manheim /TiVo