Imani Winds

Since its founding in 1997, GRAMMY-nominated Imani Winds has been tirelessly dedicated to expanding the wind quintet repertoire, exploring non-European musical traditions, and recruiting culturally and racially diverse collaborators. Capping its stint as Ensemble in Residence at Duke — a multi-year collaboration that brought the ensemble four times for performance, recording of new student pieces, and engagement with the Durham community — Imani will perform two newly commissioned works in October 2023 that explore the legacy of immigration and the African diaspora.

Jeff Scott‘s (Oberlin) Immigrant Songs examines the complex historical interplay between immigration and national identity in the United States, which have again taken center stage in our political discourse.

Mr. Baptiste, by Duke alum David Kirkland Garner (University of South Carolina) and featuring new poetry from Jamaican-born Ishion Hutchinson (Cornell), draws inspiration from the earliest known transcription of West African music in the Americas. It builds directly on research Garner conducted as a graduate student with Mary Caton Lingold and Haiti and Caribbean scholar Laurent Dubois, compiled on the interactive website Musical Passage: A Voyage to 1688 Jamaica.