When Valerie Coleman was studying flute performance
at Mannes School of Music in 1997, she came up with the idea for the
name of her wind quintet: Imani Winds. With that in mind, she asked
friends for names of quality New York musicians of color in the
freelancing scene and came across bassoonist Monica Ellis, French horn
player Jeff Scott, oboist Toyin Spellman-Diaz, and clarinetist Mariam
Adam. Swahili for “faith,” imani became the new quintet’s namesake.
Today, nearly two decades later and with four of the five original
members still in the ensemble, Imani Winds has gone on to receive a
Grammy nomination for Best Classical Crossover Album (2016). Last year,
Mark Dover came on board as Imani’s clarinetist. Throughout its career,
the group has been devoted to promoting diversity in classical music,
and it works hard to reach as diverse an audience as possible through
various outreach efforts and collaborations with other performers and
composers. At the end of last academic year, UChicago named Imani Winds
the new Don Michael Randel ensemble in residence on campus, succeeding
the Pacifica Quartet.
On Friday, the Imanis teamed up with the University of Chicago
Chamber Music Organization (CMO) to partake in the third of a series of
CMO-hosted panel discussions on race, class, and privilege in classical
music in the Logan Penthouse. The discussion was moderated by
fourth-year Shirley Zhang.
The discussion quickly turned to the Imanis’ dedication to performing
diverse music by composers of varying backgrounds. As Scott explained,
wind quintets “don’t have the Mozarts, the Brahms, the Strausses, and so
on. So we don’t have great literature, the great composers of the 18th
and 19th centuries.”
Scott—who, along with Coleman, is a composer himself—discussed that
this distinct lack of repertoire is what placed Imani Winds and other
wind quintets in a unique position to influence the birth of an entirely
new canon of repertoire.
“You just can’t survive without repertoire,” he continued. “So you
celebrate the idea that you’re starting with a blank palette.”
From this blank palette, Imani Winds created its Legacy Commissioning
Project. Through Legacy, Imani commissioned 10 composers of color for a
variety of concerts, as well as recordings.
“We knew right away that it was important to commission music from
underrepresented folk,” Scott said. “It’s hard enough to get your music
premiered no matter who you are, but definitely if you’re
African-American, or Latino, or Asian; if you’re not from the standard
European canon, it’s hard to get music performed. We have a platform
that we stand on, and we decided to put our money where our mouths
were.”
Ultimately the musicians stressed that performing diverse genres is
integral to promoting inclusivity in classical music, and integral to
Imani on the whole.
“As artists, it’s our responsibility to be true to ourselves,” Coleman said.
