Imani Winds final week as Ensemble-in-Residence culminates with two public performances

Imani Winds

Imani Winds returns to campus for the final week as the Don Michael Randel Ensemble-in-Residence. The musicians will participate in a range of activities, concluding with two public performances.

  • Classroom visit to Music 122 with Professor Robert Kendrick and Music 102 with Assistant Professor Jessica Swanston Baker

  • Sectional coachings with the Performance Program wind musicians

  • Workshops with 6th, 7th, and 8th grade music students at the UChicago Lab School

Public events:

Friday, May 11 / 7:30 p.m. / Logan Center 
6:30 p.m. pre-concert talk with Travis Jackson, Henry Threadgill, & Imani Winds

University of Chicago Presents brings Imani Winds to the stage in a program that honors figures of the Civil Rights Movement with contemporary works written specifically for the quintet. Frederic Rzewski’s Sometimes memorializes the late scholar of African-American history, John Hope Franklin, and Vijay Iyer reflects on the death of Trayvon Martin in his work Bruits, for wind quintet and piano. Imani winds also premieres a new work reflecting on Chicago by Pulitzer Prize-winner Henry Threadgill. The Chicago Community Chorus, joins the quintet to close the program with performances of traditional American spirituals and an arrangement of Sam Cooke’s “A Change is Gonna Come.” A reception for the audience and musicians will follow the performance in the Logan Center lobby.


Saturday, May 12 / 8 p.m. / Rockefeller Chapel 
7 p.m. pre-concert reception and conversation with the composers

The New Music Ensemble presents four world premiere works written for Imani Winds as part of a year-long project with graduate composers Alison Yun-Fei Jiang, Maria Kaoutzani, Kevin Kay, and Ted Moore. Each composer collaborated with Imani Winds to create the best works possible, honing and enhancing the details of the music together. Also on the program is Jeff Scott’s Sacred Womenfor Double Wind Quintet, performed by Imani Winds and members of the University Symphony Orchestra.

Join us to celebrate our wonderful time with Imani Winds!