Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival - June 21-30, 2016 - 8 world premieres at the Mannes School of Music at The New School





The website of the Afro-Cuban composer and conductor Tania Justina León (b. 1943) is http://www.tanialeon.com/; she is also profiled at AfriClassical.com.

Valerie Coleman


Jessie Montgomery
www.jessiemontgomery.com



From June 21-30, the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival convenes 19 leaders in the world of chamber music with 56 promising musicians ages 18-63 for rehearsals, professional development, and collaboration—culminating in eight world premieres at the Mannes School of Music at The New School. The Festival includes seven public performances. 


Participating ensembles include PUBLIQuartet, AnAlex Duo, The Songwriter’s Orchestra, Imani Winds, as well as composer-in-residence Tania León, composers James Primosch, Victoria Bond, and Greg Sandow, clarinetist David Krakauer, and MET Opera Orchestra musicians, oboist Pedro R. Díaz and bassoonist Daniel Shelly. 

Details and calendar information are below. Please let me know if I can be of any assistance. 

Best, 

Mike






FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 6, 2016

For Media Inquiries:
Mike Fila/Bucklesweet Media
202-636-3503



From June 21-30, Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival convenes premier woodwind & brass musicians, emerging talent for collaborative projects, master classes, and performances, culminating in eight world premieres


Members of PUBLIQuartet, AnAlex Duo, The Songwriter’s Orchestra, Imani Winds, and more perform in forward-looking summer institute at the Mannes School of Music at The New School in New York City



The Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, an intense summer institute devoted to performance excellence and career development, will pair 19 leaders in the world of chamber music with 56 promising, deftly talented participants ages 18-63 from across the country and as far as Brazil and Spain to strengthen the future of chamber woodwind music. Faculty for the 2016 Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival includes the members of Imani Winds, composer-in-residence Tania León, composers James Primosch, Victoria Bond, and Greg Sandow, clarinetist David Krakauer, and MET Opera Orchestra musicians, oboist Pedro R. Díaz and bassoonist Daniel Shelly.


Created by Imani Winds (Valerie Coleman, Mark Dover, Monica Ellis, Toyin Spellman-Diaz, and Jeffrey Scott) in 2010, the festival is one of only a few in the United States to focus exclusively on woodwind quintet and sextet repertoire. Imani Winds is known for its adventurous programming and dedication to education, exemplified through extensive outreach, cultivation of young musicians, and its Legacy Commissioning Project. The Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival was founded in this spirit, to engage new music and new voices in the modern classical idiom.

Over 10 days, participating musicians engage in rigorous workshops, coaching sessions, lectures, and rehearsals. The result is a congenial and free exchange of information, expertise, and critique. Participants are also grouped into ensembles which work exclusively with mentor musicians during the course of the festival to create and refine a new composition by an emerging composer, which is debuted during the festival’s culminating concerts.  

The festival includes public concerts with members of PUBLIQuartet, The Songwriter’s Orchestra, AnAlex Duo, and members of Imani Winds. Select festival participants will perform alongside these all-star ensembles. The concerts Visionaries and Chamber Music Celebration conclude the festival, featuring more established repertoire alongside eight world premieres. All concerts take place in the Concert Hall at the Mannes School of Music at The New School, located at 55 W 13th St, New York, NY 10011.

Concerts in the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival

Traditional and the Experimental
Tuesday, June 21, 2016
7 p.m.                         
Concert Hall, Mannes School of Music at The New School
Suggested donation: $10

Valerie Coleman: Red Clay and Mississippi Delta
Paquito D’Rivera: Kites
Astor Piazzolla arr. Jeff Scott: Contrabajissimo        
Anders Hillborg: Six Pieces for Wind Quintet
Simon Shaheen arr. Jeff Scott: Dance Mediterranea                                   

This program features staples of Imani Winds’ repertoire representing diverse and virtuosic renditions of works written or arranged specifically for Imani Winds or from the 21st century wind quintet canon.

AnAlex Duo
Friday, June 24, 2016
7 p.m.            
Concert Hall, Mannes School of Music at The New School
Suggested donation: $10

Valerie Coleman: Rubispheres #4 & #5
Guy Mintus: Trapatikadoo-Sounds of Creation
Sunny Knable: AlexAna

AnAlex Duo, featuring saxophonist Ana Garcia Caraballos and bassoonist Alexander Davis, balances the refinement of classical music while zigzagging through hip-hop, blues, flamenco, bollywood, and rock ‘n’ roll. Daring these two instruments to have a conversation, AnAlex Duo commissions electrifying works, creating an ice-breaker for this unusual collaboration. Their musical dynamism has carried AnAlex Duo to Alice Tully Hall, Symphony Space, Instituto Cervantes NY, Merkin Concert Hall, The National Opera Center, Spectrum, and Le Poisson Rouge. They have also performed with a range of ensembles, from Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and the Kronos Quartet, to CityMusic Cleveland Chamber Orchestra, The Juilliard New Music Ensemble, Windscape, and Imani Winds.

An Evening of Classical Improvisation
with members of PUBLIQuartet and Imani Winds
Saturday, June 25, 2016
7 p.m.
Concert Hall, Mannes School of Music at The New School
Suggested donation: $10

Jessie Montgomery: Rhapsody #1 for solo violin
Max Duykers: After lightness

Founded in 2010, PUBLIQuartet, featuring three of its members tonight (Curtis Stewart, Jannina Northporth, and Amanda Gookin), is dedicated to presenting new works for the string quartet. PQ was selected as the Concert Artists Guild’s New Music/New Places Ensemble at the 2013 CAG Victor Elmaleh Competition, winning their 2013 Sylvia Ann Hewlett Adventurous Artist Prize. Hailed by WQXR as a “…’genre-independent’ quartet that not only vehemently supports emerging composers, but also composes collectively – a rare occurrence in this field,” the group received Chamber Music America’s ASCAP Adventurous Programming Award for outstanding and innovative approaches to contemporary classical, jazz, and world chamber music.

The Songwriter’s Orchestra
Solomon Hoffman, artistic director
Sunday, June 26, 2016
7 p.m.
Concert Hall, Mannes School of Music at The New School
Suggested donation: $10

The Songwriter’s Orchestra is a genre-defying ensemble that pairs singer/songwriters with a group of 12 orchestral musicians to present brand new musical arrangements of original songs. They work with songwriters from a variety of genres, transforming each song so the ensemble of wind, string, brass, and percussion players can serve as the sole accompaniment. This performance of The Songwriter's Orchestra will feature Britton Smith, currently in Broadway's Shuffle Along, Olivia Harris, and duo Jazze Belle (Taylor Simone and Jett Carter), and others.

The diversity and power of the ensemble brings each song to life in a whole new way as they continue to explore the unique possibilities of this chamber ensemble. They have worked with a variety of singers including Shaina Taub, Grace McLean, Magnus Ferguson, Sarah Dooley, Nicole Weiss, Dawn Cantwell, Olivia Harris, Britton Smith, Janet Krupin, Brittany Campbell, Jazze Belle, and Eisa Davis.

Mythos and Logos, (A Musical Journey through Myth and Logic)
with Imani Winds composer-musicians Valerie Coleman & Jeff Scott
Tuesday, June 28, 2016
7 p.m.              
Concert Hall, Mannes School of Music at The New School
Suggested donation: $10

Jeff Scott: Poem for a Lost King
Scott: Xango e Oya
Scott: The Rite of Nestinari
Scott: De Mujeres y Agua
Valerie Coleman: Wish Sonatine
Coleman: Hair Cloth and Thread
Coleman: Umoja for Chamber Winds
Coleman: Rubispheres #2

This concert features original repertoire by Valerie Coleman and Jeffrey Scott from the Imani Winds.

Visionaries
Wednesday, June 29, 2016
5 p.m.
Concert Hall, Mannes School of Music at The New School
Suggested donation: $10

Hosted by Tania León, this concert features eight world premieres for woodwind quintet and sextet by composers Guy Mintus, Christopher Kaminski, Marnen Laibow-Koser, Jonathan Newmark, John Albert Harris, Andre Codeco, Erik Maloy, and Aaron Price.

Chamber Music Celebration
Thursday, June 30, 2016
7 p.m.
Concert Hall, Mannes School of Music at The New School
Suggested donation $10

This culminating concert for the festival highlights the work of eight woodwind quintets, one quartet, and two sextets, and showcases works by Paquito D’Rivera, Valerie Coleman, Astor Piazzolla, and Jean Francaix, alongside select world premieres from the Visionaries concert.

About Imani Winds

Since 1997 Imani Winds, the Grammy-nominated wind quintet, has taken a unique path carving out a distinct presence in the classical music world with its dynamic playing, culturally poignant programming, adventurous collaborations, and inspirational outreach programs. With two member composers and a deep commitment to commissioning new work, the group is enriching the traditional wind quintet repertoire while meaningfully bridging European, American, African and Latin American traditions.

The group continues its Legacy Commissioning Project, in which the ensemble commissions and premieres  new works for woodwind quintet written by established and emerging composers of diverse musical backgrounds. Legacy Commissioning projects have included works by Vijay Iyer, Simon Shaheen, Jason Moran, Mohammed Fairousz and Frederic Rzewski. 2016 – 17 will include premiers by Reena Esmail, Nkeiru Okoye and Pulitzer prize winner Henry Threadgill.

The range of programs offered by Imani Winds demonstrates their mission to expand the repertoire and diversify new music sources. From Mendelssohn to Astor Piazzolla to Wayne Shorter and Derek Bermel, Imani Winds seeks to engage new music and new voices into the modern classical idiom. Imani members Valerie Coleman and Jeff Scott both regularly contribute compositions and arrangements to the ensemble’s expanding repertoire.

In the summer of 2010 the ensemble launched its annual Chamber Music Festival. The program, set on the campus of Mannes School of Music, brings together young instrumentalists and composers from across North America and beyond for intense exploration and performance of traditional and new chamber music compositions. In addition to the musicians of Imani Winds the Festival brings in some of the most important names of the chamber music world including Tania Leon, Paula Robeson and Paquito d' Rivera.



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Comment by email:
Thanks so much, Bill! Clearly you’re friendly with the Imani Winds folks (hey guys!). So glad this was on your radar. Thanks again for posting to AfriClassical. [Mike Fila]

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