Imani Winds

Saturday, January 18, 2014 | 8:00 pm

Baldwin Auditorium

The Boston Globe calls Imani Winds “the leading wind quintet in America.” These classical virtuosi make it their mission to expand the repertoire for their ensemble by both composing and arranging for themselves and by commissioning composers from a variety of genres to write for the classical wind quintet.

In this program, the ensemble shows off its considerable skill playing Jonathan Russell’s new arrangement of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, which streamlines the massive original score into a rendition for just five wind instruments. The result is an epic in miniature. Jazz composer and MacArthur “Genius” Jason Moran wrote Cane — a Creole-flavored epic that reflects on his family’s proud history in rural Louisiana — expressly for Imani Winds, who premiered the piece in 2010 at Carnegie Hall.

Program