Chamber Music New Zealand presents:
IMANI WINDS
Valerie Coleman (flute) / Toyin Spellman-Diaz (oboe)
Mark Dover (clarinet) / Jeff Scott (horn) /Monica Ellis (bassoon)
VALERIE COLEMAN - Red Clay and Mississippi Delta
RIMSKY-KORSAKOV (arr. Jonathan Russell) - Scheherazade
PIAZZOLLA (arr.Jeff Scott) - Contrabajissimo
NATALIE HUNT - Snapshots (CMNZ Commission)
PAQUITO D'RIVIERA - A Farewell Mambo
SIMON SHAHEEN (arr. Jeff Scott) - Dance Mediterranea
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
Tuesday, 27th September, 2017
Upbeat Review by Peter Mechen,
Imani Winds Photo: Supplied
IMANI WINDS - characterful, surprising, adventurous and innovative.
New York-based ensemble Imani Winds "breezed" into Wellington for a concert organised by Chamber Music New Zealand, marking the beginning of a ten-venue tour of the country. The group arrived here with a reputation for characterful presentations and innovative programming, including an avowed commitment to new music; and the musicians on all counts fulfilled such promise in the course of their Michael Fowler Centre concert.
Two members of the group, Valerie Coleman and Jeff Scott, are established composers, and the efforts of each as a composer (Valerie Coleman's Red Clay and Mississippi Delta) and arranger (Jeff Scott's wind-quintet adaptations of works by Astor Piazzolla and Palestinian-born American Simon Shaheen) featured during the evening.
As well, New Zealand composer Natalie Hunt, a former NZSO/Todd Corporation Young Composer Award-winner contributed an evocative, Africa-inspired work Snapshots, commissioned for the tour by CMNZ.
A curiosity was an ambitious (though almost comically truncated) adaptation for winds of Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade by a London composer, Jonathan Russell - it was all part of the eclectic and flamboyant mix served up by this colourful and vibrant ensemble for the audience's great delight!
