BodyVox & Chamber Music Northwest Present BEAUTIFUL EVERYTHING With The Imani Winds

Chamber Music Northwest and BodyVox once again collaborate to present a new performance of dance and chamber music with the upcoming production of Beautiful Everything.

This new show will highlight nine of BodyVox's dance company members, including the dance and choreography of founders and Artistic Directors Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland. Musically, it will feature the 2024 Grammy Award-winning wind quintet, Imani Winds, and gifted Portland pianist Yoko Greeney. This is the eighth time BodyVox and Chamber Music Northwest have collaborated to create an exciting fusion of live chamber music and contemporary dance. It is the third collaboration of this kind with the internationally acclaimed Imani Winds. Beautiful Everything will be held at Beaverton's Patricia Reser Center for the Arts for a four-show stint, from April 19 through 21, 2024.

The dynamic 2024 Grammy Award-winning Imani Winds return to collaborate with Portland's BodyVox on the latest chamber music and dance creation—Beautiful Everything—co-presented by Chamber Music Northwest and BodyVox.

Beautiful Everything will be an extraordinary, fully immersive evening of inspiring music, audacious and innovative dance, and richly detailed video environments. The show is a celebration of beauty, hope, optimism, and joy in a time which is endlessly portrayed in the media as dark and downward spiraling. Beautiful Everything works to pull back the veil of negativity that obscures the true nature of beauty as a choice.

“Beautiful Everything is a manifesto that resists polarization, violence, and negativity,” said Ashley Roland and Jamey Hampton, BodyVox Artistic Directors. “It is like saying ‘Just Do It,' or ‘Think Different.' It is inclusive, vast, and intimate. ‘Beautiful Everything' has been a foundation in our creative process throughout our careers, but we have never claimed it so vividly as source material for a show in itself. The times demand it. In yet another collaborative production with Chamber Music Northwest we join forces once again with the extraordinary Imani Winds, for a thrilling return to the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts.

Creating arrangements for the production is the remarkable New York City artist Dan Schlosberg—a frequent CMNW collaborator. Equally at home in opera, chamber music, and symphonic spectacle, Dan is the bridge from DEVO to Philip Glass. Music selections draw from the catalogues of the Imani Winds, John Adams, Mark Mothersbaugh (of DEVO), Chick Corea, Brian Eno, Philip Glass, and Debussy. The production will also include the Imani Winds performing the West Coast Premiere of Shawn E. Okpebholo's Rise for Wind Quintet, a CMNW co-commission. [Program Notes]

“We are overjoyed to have played a part in the Imani Winds' 2024 Grammy Award for Jeff Scott's Passion for Bach and Coltrane, which CMNW produced at our 2018 Summer Festival,” said Peter Bilotta, CMNW Executive Director. “The Imani Winds have been a vital part of Chamber Music Northwest for more than two decades as both exquisitely talented musicians and wonderful collaborators—including being our 2018/19 Artists-in-Residence. We are so delighted to have them back for Portland audiences to experience their music in Beautiful Everything, on the heels of their Grammy win.”

CREATIVE TEAM

Beautiful Everything choreography is by BodyVox founders Jamey Hampton and Ashley Roland, with input from the dancers. The show's extraordinary costumes are designed and built by Ashley Roland. Video environments are designed, and will be executed by Jamey Hampton.

SPECIAL EVENTS

Pre-Concert Prelude Performances | 6:30-7 pm in the lobby on April 19 & 20. These performances will feature local, young musicians and dancers from BodyVox's Junior Artist Generator (JAG) Company.

SINGLE TICKETS

Range: $35-$67.50

30 & Under: $20
18 & Under: $10
Senior Rush: $30 (at the door)
Arts Industry Rush: $20 (at the door)
Arts for All: $5 (advance/at the door)

All tickets are available through the Patricia Reser Center for the Arts. A facility fee is added to the ticket purchase.

TICKET LINK

About Imani Winds

Imani Winds is the 2024 Grammy winner in the Classical Compendium category for Jeff Scott's Passion for Bach and Coltrane released on their recently formed record label, Imani Winds Media. Celebrating over a quarter century of music-making, the three time Grammy-nominated group has led both a revolution and evolution of the wind quintet through their dynamic playing, adventurous programming, imaginative collaborations, and outreach endeavors that have inspired audiences of all ages and backgrounds.

The ensemble's playlist embraces traditional chamber music repertoire, and newly commissioned works from voices that reflect historical events and the times in which we currently live. Recent projects include a Jessie Montgomery composition inspired by her great-grandfather's migration from the American south to the north, socially conscious music by Andy Akiho reflecting on mass incarceration, and a work by Carlos Simon celebrating iconic figures of the African American community. These works and more have been commissioned as a part of the Legacy Commissioning Project.

Twenty-six seasons of full-time touring has brought Imani Winds to virtually every major chamber music series, performing arts center, and summer festival in the U.S. They regularly perform in prominent venues including Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, and the Kennedy Center, and have a presence at festivals such as Chamber Music Northwest, Chautauqua Institution, and Banff Centre. Imani Winds thoughtfully curates unique residencies that include performances, workshops, and masterclasses to thousands of students each year at institutions such as the University of Chicago, Eastman School of Music, and Duke University. Their international presence includes concerts throughout Asia, Brazil, Australia, England, New Zealand, and Europe.

Appointed in 2021 as Curtis Institute of Music's first-ever Faculty Wind Quintet, Imani Winds' commitment to education runs deep. The highly successful Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival, launched in 2010, is an annual summer program devoted to musical excellence and career development for pre-professional instrumentalists and composers. The curriculum includes mentorship, masterclasses, entrepreneurial workshops, community engagement activities, and performances, with the goal of fostering the complete musician and global citizen. In 2019, the group extended their mission even further by creating the non-profit organization, Imani Winds Foundation, which exists to support, connect, and uplift their initiatives, and more.

Imani Winds' travels through the jazz world are highlighted by their multifaceted association with luminary musicians and composers Wayne Shorter, Paquito D'Rivera, and Jason Moran. Their ambitious project, Josephine Baker: A Life of Le Jazz Hot! featured jazz songstress René Marie in performances that brought the house down in New York, Pittsburgh, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and St. Louis.

In 2021, Imani Winds released their 9th studio album, Bruits, on Bright Shiny Things Records, which received a 2022 Grammy nomination for “Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance.” Gramophone states, “the ensemble's hot rapport churns with conviction throughout.” Imani Winds has recordings on Koch International Classics and E1 Music, including their 2006 Grammy-nominated recording, The Classical Underground. They have also recorded for Naxos and Blue Note, and released an acclaimed arrangement of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring on Warner Classics. They are regularly heard on all media platforms including NPR, American Public Media, the BBC, SiriusXM, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.

To date, one of Imani Winds' most humbling recognitions is a permanent presence in the classical music section of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC.

ABOUT BODYVOX

BodyVox is dedicated to the creation and performance of innovative dance works that entertain, inspire, and uplift audiences of all ages. Considered among America's most innovative dance companies, BodyVox is known for its visual virtuosity, distinctive wit, and unique ability to combine dance, theater, and film into breathtaking productions rich in imagery, athleticism, and humor. We view dance as a powerful, inclusive language for communication because it is nonverbal, capable of bridging cultural differences and generations. BODYVOX WEBSITE

ABOUT CHAMBER MUSIC NORTHWEST 

Now in its 54th season, Chamber Music Northwest serves more than 50,000 people annually in Oregon and SW Washington with exceptional chamber music through over 100 events annually, including our flagship Summer Festival, year-round concerts, community activities, educational programs, broadcasts, and innovative collaborations with other arts groups. CMNW is the only chamber music festival of its kind in the Northwest and one of the most diverse classical music experiences in the nation, virtually unparalleled in comparable communities.

Chamber Music Northwest's mission is to inspire our community through concerts and events celebrating the richness and diversity of chamber music, performed by artists of the highest caliber, presenting our community with exceptional opportunities for enjoyment, education, and reflection. Chamber Music Northwest is led by Artistic Directors Gloria Chien and Soovin Kim, and Executive Director Peter Bilotta.

Over the past five decades, Chamber Music Northwest has engaged an incredible range of musicians, composers, board members, staff, volunteers, and audiences from diverse backgrounds, heritages and lived experiences whose contributions have been a vital part of who we are today. CMNW exists to offer listeners and musicians musical encounters that inspire collective appreciation and joy. We will endeavor to use the power of our musical programming and educational programs to include myriad of cultures and perspectives, to embrace every generation, and magnify a broad variety of artistic voices. In actively doing this work to enrich our entire community, we make our stand against hate and discrimination, create opportunities that make meaningful and lasting change, and ensure a multitude of musical voices are elevated, heard, and celebrated.

Chamber Music Northwest embraces the artistry of each individual, and believes that unique cultural heritages and myriad of backgrounds are profound strengths to be celebrated, both in our musical family and in our community at large. We stand firmly against, will not tolerate, and condemn discrimination, bigotry, and violence directed at any persons, or groups of people, based on their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identification, country or nation of origin, physical or intellectual ability.

We value all members of our community and will actively work to dismantle systems of exclusion and discrimination. While we will stumble and fail, we will continually strive to embrace, promote, present, commission, engage, and perform the music of an infinite variety of voices of artists, cultures, heritages, traditions, histories, and imaginations to express the universal power to move the human heart and inspire connection through music. Though we will fall short, and will never do enough to right the wrongs of systemic racism and other forms institutionalized discrimination in our culture and art form, we commit ourselves to elevating the work of musicians and composers who are Asian, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, women, LGBTQIA, or of intersectional or other underrepresented identities, to match the emphasis placed on classical music's historically traditional artists.

Chamber Music Northwest is an international leader in celebrating chamber music's enduring relevance and diversity, with more than 100 commissions and premieres of new works as well as its Protégé Project, which cultivates the next generation of dynamic chamber music performers by supporting exceptional, early-career chamber musicians and composers in their professional development. In June 2022, Chamber Music Northwest (CMNW) launched the Young Artist Institute (YAI), an intensive education program for 16 talented string players from around the world, ages 14-18. The three-week YAI program includes a faculty of esteemed musicians and teachers. This groundbreaking program also includes a Collaborative Piano Fellowship for two international pianists.

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