There is certainly no group out there quite like Imani Winds. The virtuosic quintet finds ways to combine the sounds of the past with futuristic innovations in a manner that makes it impossible to put them in a box. The group dazzled an enthusiastic audience in a performance at Warner Concert Hall at 7:30 p.m. Thursday. Musically and thematically, it was certainly a concert to remember.
One of the most immediately impressive aspects of the performance was the sheer quality of the musicianship. Each performer was absolutely stellar, displaying a mind-bending understanding of their instruments. Brandon Patrick George, OC ’08, and Mekhi Gladden, on oboe and flute respectively, performed almost telepathically with one another, weaving together intricate and ethereal melodies to form beautifully delicate walls of sound. Mark Dover’s complex soloing on clarinet boggled the mind; one could hardly comprehend the pace at which his fingers moved, creating streams of rapid emotional sonic movement. Kevin Newton created vital textures on the horn and provided some fantastic solos to boot. He also wowed audiences with an emotional vocal performance of Billy Taylor’s arrangement of “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free,” his words filling the concert space and garnering a well-deserved standing ovation. The most astonishing performance of all, however, came from bassoonist Monica Ellis, OC ’95, whose unabashedly visceral tone was impossible to ignore. At times it was hard to distinguish her sound from that of a piercing baritone saxophone.
As good as each individual musician was, though, it must be noted how tight the group felt as a unit. Each arrangement was played with such brilliant togetherness that it was hard at times to distinguish instrument from instrument. Tones blended together and created musical worlds, moving as one like a living organism.
Each piece performed Thursday added a new layer to the powerful musical message that Imani Winds conveyed. The opener, Damien Geter’s arrangement “I Said What I Said,” was a perfect synecdoche for the concert as a whole. The music drifted between sweet dissonance and consonance, bravado and anxiety, at times deeply classical in nature and at times sounding like Charles Mingus’ early work.
The next piece, a three-part movement entitled “Giants,” moved from jazzy arrangements of opulent bassoons and ear-pleasing solos on “Bessie Smith” (movement one), to the haunting and spindly melodies of “Cornel West” (movement two), to the tumbling, chaotic ebbs and flows of “Herbie Hancock” (movement three).
On “BeLoud, BeLoved, BeLonging,” the musicians crafted a dense universe of mesmerizing and angular sound. The arrangement, inspired by the banging of immigrant detainees on the walls of Brooklyn’s Metropolitan Detention Center, felt like a call to action: rhythmic and urgent. The ending of this work was of particular note, featuring a hypnotic amalgamation of flute and oboe flourishes. “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free” followed this piece and was the perfect finish to the concert’s opening half. Kevin Newton’s singing absolutely brought the house down and was the highlight of an evening of musical excellence.
The concert’s entire second half was dedicated to the piece “Fallen Petals of Nameless Flowers,” with a musical arrangement by Associate Professor of Horn Jeff Scott and featuring a poem by Robert Laidler. According to Scott, the composer, the piece “combines personal accounts of formerly incarcerated individuals” who fell victim to the American judicial system.
The four young men discussed in this piece were all given life sentences before having these sentences overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court. The piece followed these men in their life journeys, pairing this with haunting music that reveled in its own dissonance. The tightly cyclical nature of this arrangement at times mirrored the lack of opportunity afforded to the subjects in their dealings with the American judicial system.
It was a harrowing piece, but one that was powerful to no end. It was at the heart of what Imani Winds stands for: according to bassoonist Monica Ellis, the group aims to stand “at the intersection of art and justice.” And that is exactly what those at Warner Concert Hall witnessed: a call to action through music that never stopped impressing. It was a brilliant performance that the five members of Imani Winds should be proud of.
