Saturday, March 20 , 2010 @ 7:30 p.m
The North Theatre

“I wasn’t thinking of just any wind quintet, but of a group of virtuoso musicians of color who would join together to change the conventional view that classical music is somehow ‘exclusive’ and too stuffy to be accessible.”­
—Flutist and founding member Valerie Coleman recounting how, some twelve years ago, she conceived of Imani Winds, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2009

No indigestion here, just food for the soul. In May 2009, Imani’s clarinetist Mariam Adam waxed enthusiastic to the Wall Street Journal about what makes this quintet unique: “Classical musicians don’t often get the opportunity to combine so many disparate musical and even visual elements into a performance.”

And how do they do it? “So we like to plan each program like a five-course meal. Sometimes it’s all a form of tapas, but mostly it has a structure that opens the ears of new listeners and hopefully prepares them for all different sounds they can hear along the way.” Dishing out these hearty musical appetizers—in addition to flutist Valerie Coleman and clarinetist Mariam Adam—are oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, French hornist Jeff Scott and bassonist Monica Ellis. While this Grammy-winning quintet is based in New York, its name “Imani” is the Swahili word for faith, reflecting the members’ cosmopolitan African-American and Latin heritage. This crackerjack ensemble of soloists is renowned for intermingling kaleidoscopic musical styles under the classical umbrella; two members themselves compose and arrange much of the inventive music that wows audiences everywhere and has the critics raving about their CDs. Imani is manna for the spirit.