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Program

Imani Winds

Brandon Patrick George, flute
Mekhi Gladden, oboe
Mark Dover, clarinet
Kevin Newton, horn
Monica Ellis, bassoon

Damien Getter

I Said What I Said

Carlos Simon

Giants

• i. Bessie Smith
• ii. Maya Angelou
• iii. Ronald E. McNair
• iv. Cornel West
• v. Herbie Hancock

Paquito D’Rivera

Aires Tropicales

• i. Alborada
• ii. Son
• iii. Vals Venezolano
• iv. Habanera
• v. Dizziness
• vi. Afro
• vii. Contradanza

Intermission

Shawn Okpebholo

Rise**

• i. Seeds
• ii. Deep Harmony
• iii. Spark!

Andy Akiho

BeLoud, BeLoved, BeLonging

Billy Taylor (arr. Mark Dover)

“I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free”

**Co-commissioned by Linton Chamber Music, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Chamber Music Northwest, Phoenix Chamber Music Society, Adelante Winds, Cleveland Orchestra Woodwind Quintet, Imani Winds, New York Woodwind Quintet

Patrons are requested to silence cell phones and other electronic devices during performances.

The taking of photographs and the use of recording equipment are not allowed in this venue.
Program order and artists are subject to change.

Terms and Conditions

All events and artists subject to change without prior notice.

Program Notes

Damien Getter: I Said What I Said

“I Said What I Said” is a phrase that was coined by TV personality NeNe Leakes but also is a colloquialism in the Black community to emphasize a point—usually one that was mentioned (often repeatedly) a time before. I Said What I Said for wind quintet uses musical phrases in repetition to symbolize the continuous conversations Black people have about their (our) experiences living in the world, and how we must constantly defend ourselves against those whose equity lens is tainted. —Damien Getter

Carlos Simon: Giants

This piece is inspired by Black Americans who have influenced me and my identity as a composer— Bessie Smith, Maya Angelou, Ronald E. McNair, Cornel West, and Herbie Hancock. Each movement is meant to embody the work and personality (as best as I can gather) through music. I want to not only pay homage to these giants, but offer a character study through music of their work. This work was commissioned by the Imani Winds and the Shriver Concert Series. —Carlos Simon

Paquito D’Rivera: Aires Tropicales

© 2024 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

Composer, clarinetist, and saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera, born in Havana in 1948, was introduced to music by his father, Tito, a well-known classical saxophonist and conductor in Cuba, and began performing in public at the age of six; the following year he became the youngest artist ever to endorse a musical instrument when he was signed by the Selmer Company. Much of D’Rivera’s early musical education came from listening to recordings and jazz programs on the Voice of America. Soon after beginning formal study at the conservatory in Havana (at the age of 12), he was playing in local jazz and theater orchestras; he appeared to great acclaim when he was 17 as soloist on clarinet and saxophone in a nationally televised concert with the Cuban National Symphony Orchestra. After serving in the military as a member of an army band, D’Rivera joined the Orquesta Cubana de Música Moderna, some of whose members founded the group Irakere (a Yoruba word meaning vegetation and growth) in 1972 to explore an adventurous mixture of jazz, popular, and traditional Afro-Cuban music. Irakere created a sensation at the 1978 Newport and Montreux jazz festivals, and won a Grammy Award^® for a recording made there.

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Shawn Okpebholo: Rise

© 2024 Dr. Richard E. Rodda

The parallel strains of spirituality and social justice that run through the compositions of Shawn Okpebholo are rooted in his upbringing in Lexington, Kentucky in the Salvation Army church, where he was instilled with the love of music and received his early musical education. Okpebholo earned his baccalaureate in composition and music history at nearby Asbury College, and went to the College-Conservatory of Music (CCM) at the University of Cincinnati for his master’s and doctoral degrees. He taught at CCM, Union University in Tennessee, and Northern Kentucky University before being appointed Jonathan Blanchard Professor of Composition at Wheaton College in Illinois in 2010. He has also led master classes across the country and internationally, including at two universities in Africa, where he has done ethnomusicological fieldwork in Nigeria, Kenya, and Uganda. “I’m half Nigerian,” he said, “so that aspect is influencing my music as I continue to try to reconnect with the music of my father.”

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Andy Akiho: BeLoud, BeLoved, BeLonging

BeLoud, BeLoved, BeLonging by composer and steel pan musician Andy Akiho, is a shared musical experience created to make the listener and performer join together to commune with each other over an important idea—the idea of HOW we all belong where we are. 

The piece was conceived and inspired from the sound of 2019 protests by immigrant detainees at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York. It supplies an unflinching, even relentless exploration of incarceration and the humanity of all involved in the system. Workshopped and performed over the pandemic with a group of incarcerated young men at Rikers Island, the piece follows the theme of Imani Winds’ Grammy^®-nominated album, Bruits, which speaks to the blockage of justice across the United States and the world, offering commentary on the intersection of race and the prison system. 

Billy Taylor: “I Wish I Knew How it Would Feel to be Free”

Jazz pianist, composer, and broadcaster Dr. Billy Taylor originally penned “I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel To Be Free,” as a gospel-influenced instrumental tune, dedicated to his daughter Kim, and first released it on his 1963 album Right Here, Right Now. Taylor would eventually write the lyrics, with the latter verses assisted by lyricist Dick Lamb.

It was in the mid 1960s that the song was adapted by Nina Simone, during which time she both released her own adaptation on her 1967 album Silk and Soul, and toured the song over the following decade, when it quickly became an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. The powerful juxtaposition of the simple yet poignant hymn-like melody and the steadfast call for equality and justice, resonated in the collective consciousness of the Movement, and along with other anthems like “A Change Gonna Come,” and Simone’s own “To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,” contributed greatly not just to the fight for Civil Rights, but to the sonic fabric of the 1960s and 70s.

Through theme and variation, the Dover arrangement pays homage to both Taylor’s trio recordings of the song and is indelibly inspired by Simone’s studio recording as well as her legendary live performance at the 1976 Montreux Jazz Festival. The arrangement opens in a five part chorale, and quickly moves into a soul and gospel-based groove, featuring the bassoon in both the role of an upright bass and soloist. An improvised clarinet solo follows, interrupted by a sudden modulation into a quintet-wide solo and then immediately into a full fledged gospel shout chorus, during which the quintet melds into the sound and spirit of a Hammond organ and rhythm section, and finally concluding with the theme one last time, this time with the voices of Newton singing the first verse: “I wish I knew how It would feel to be free / I wish I could break all the chains holding me / I wish I could say All the things that I should say / Say 'em loud say 'em clear / For the whole round world to hear.”

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