Imani Winds Joins Orchestra 2001
Any audience member who entered the previous two Orchestra 2001 concerts with a measure of trepidation because of the difficult and intimidating program was offered a welcome reprieve with this past weekend's concert. The wonderful wind quintet Imani Winds joined Orchestra 2001 for their concert and the evening was predominately focused on them.
The first half was dedicated to French music in the wind quintet repertoire in honor of Orchestra 2001's focus on French music this season. It included several of the same pieces that I saw them perform on Thursday for the elementary school children and the performance on Sunday was just as fine and full of energy as it was on Thursday. The centerpiece of the first half was
The second half of the program began with a Mozart wind sextet, which was unremarkable enough to have no program notes written about it. But the real draw of the second half was the world premier of Valerie Coleman's Concerto "Afro-Cuban" for Wind Quintet and Orchestra. This was a substantial new work that blended perfectly African and Cuban inspired music with the Western classical tradition without sacrificing the authenticity of either. The piece also took its role as a concerto very seriously and included substantial solos for the quintet as a whole and individual members with no orchestral accompaniment. It was a very pleasing, very accessible piece that also showed off the amazing abilities of Imani Winds. The audience agreed, giving them a much deserved standing ovation which in turn prompted them to give an encore.
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