Canceled: Imani Winds

Arts & Context

Imani Winds in Conversation with Tsitsi Jaji

Due to COVID-19, this event has been canceled.

 
GRAMMY-nominated wind quintet Imani Winds, renowned for its virtuosity and commissioning of bold new works by composers of color, sits down with Duke professor Tsitsi Jaji to discuss the ensemble’s history, current projects, and two-year residency at Duke. Imani Winds’ Spring 2020 residency will culminate in a public performance of “Revolutionary aka the Civil Rights Project” in Baldwin Auditorium the following evening, Saturday, March 21. Tickets and further details about the program are available HERE.

Grammy-nominated quintet Imani Winds has been a distinct presence in the classical music world for more than 20 years. Through a wide range of programming designed to expand the wind quintet repertoire, the ensemble actively seeks to engage new voices into the modern classical idiom. In the US, Imani Winds has performed at major concert venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, Disney Hall and the Kimmel Center. Coming to prominence at the 2001 CAG Competition, Imani Winds was selected as the first-ever Educational Residency Ensemble, in recognition of not only their musical abilities but their connection with audiences of all ages. In 2016 Imani Winds received their greatest accolade to date: they are on permanent display in the classical music section of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture. The members of Imani Winds are Brandon Patrick George (flute), Toyin Spellman-Diaz (oboe), Jeff Scott (French horn), Mark Dover (clarinet), and Monica Ellis (bassoon).

Tsitsi Jaji is an associate professor of English at Duke University with expertise in African and African American literary and cultural studies, with special interests in music, poetry, and black feminisms. She previously taught at University of Pennsylvania and has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities/Schomburg Center, Mellon Foundation, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, and National Humanities Center. Her book, Africa in Stereo: Music, Modernism and Pan-African Solidarity (Oxford), won the African Literature Association’s First Book Prize, as well as honorable mentions from the American Comparative Literature Association and Society for Ethnomusicology. Jaji, originally from Zimbabwe, is also a poet. Her collection, Beating the Graves (2017) was published through the African Poetry Book Fund with University of Nebraska Press and her chapbook Carnaval, (2014) appears in New Generation African Poets box set.

Free and open to the public. Light lunch provided by Pie Pushers. Imani Winds’ residency is made possible, in part, with support from the Department of Music & the Office of the Vice Provost for the Arts at Duke University. Arts & Context is co-sponsored by the Forum for Scholars and Publics at Duke University, The Pinhook, North Star, and Pie Pushers.