Valerie Coleman may be familiar to some of our audience as a founding member and flutist of the Imani Winds. She is also a celebrated and award-winning composer, named one of the “Top 35 Women Composers” by the Washington Post. Performance Today nominated her “2020 Classical Woman of the Year”, an honor bestowed to an individual who has made a significant contribution to classical music as a performer, composer, or educator. Her works have garnered awards such as the MAPFund, ASCAP Honors Award, Chamber Music America’s Classical Commissioning Program, Herb Alpert Ragdale Residency Award, and nominations from The American Academy of Arts and Letters and United States Artists. Umoja, Anthem for Unity was chosen by Chamber Music America as one of the “Top 101 Great American Ensemble Works” and is now a staple of woodwind literature. 

She has assembled an incredible group of instrumentalists – fellow Imani Winds alumni Mariam Adam, clarinet and Monica Ellis, bassoon; Tai Murray on violin; cellist Titilayo Ayangade; and Artina McCain, piano – for a limited tour which we are delighted to be a part of. Reverie takes the listener back to the early twentieth century through the perspectives of Black artists who were at the center of both “Le Jazz Hot” and the Harlem Renaissance. This program melds these two worlds with works like Ravel’s Piano Trio in A minor, Debussy’s Clair de Lune, and Coleman’s own Portraits of Langston, Cotton Club Juba, and more.