Thursday, October 3, 2019

WashingtonPost.com: Imani Winds: “A Woman’s Perspective” College Park Oct. 4

The Imani Winds quintet is made up of: Mark Dover (clarinet), Brandon Patrick George (flute), Monica Ellis (bassoon), Jeff Scott (French horn) and Toyin Spellman-Diaz (oboe). (Shervin Lainez)


October 2, 2019

Anne Midgette

Why don’t we hear more music by women? Who better to answer the question than a quintet founded by a woman. For more than two decades, Imani Winds, founded by the composer and flutist Valerie Coleman, has been unfolding different perspectives in its concerts, juxtaposing Bach with John Coltrane, playing Stravinsky and Jason Moran, riding a lonely path as one of the few ensembles made up of musicians of color in a very white field. But in the classical music world, being a woman is even harder than being black — so, at least, thought Florence Price and Margaret Bonds, two major 20th-century composers who happened to be both.

“A Woman’s Perspective” is the title of Imani Winds’s program at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center on Friday. It features pieces by composers you should have heard of — including Ruth Crawford Seeger, a major voice of American modernism who after her marriage saw her work fall into neglect, and Coleman herself.

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Oct. 4 at 8 p.m. at Gildenhorn Recital Hall of the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center, 8270 Alumni Dr., College Park. theclariceumd.edu. $25; $10 for students. 

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