Valerie Coleman facts for kids

'Valerie Coleman is an American composer and flutist. She is also the person who created the famous wind quintet called Imani Winds. Valerie Coleman is a very important artist. She was named Performance Todays 2020 Classical Woman of the Year. The Washington Post also listed her as one of the "Top 35 Women Composers."

In 2019, a big orchestra called the Philadelphia Orchestra performed her piece Umoja, Anthem for Unity for the first time. This was a special moment because Umoja was the first classical music piece by a living African American woman that the Philadelphia Orchestra had ever played.

Valerie Coleman is well-known for her many contributions to chamber music for wind instruments. With Imani Winds, she released several albums. One of these albums was even nominated for a Grammy Award in 2005!

Valerie studied at the Mannes College of Music. Her teachers included famous musicians like Julius Baker. Her music often mixes different styles, such as jazz and classical music. She also likes to include ideas about social issues in her compositions. Her piece Umoja was named one of the "Top 101 Great American Works" by Chamber Music America in 2002.

Early Life and Music Journey

Valerie Coleman was born on September 3, 1970. She grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, in the same neighborhood as the famous boxer Muhammad Ali. Her father passed away when she was nine, and her mother raised Valerie and her sisters.

From a young age, Valerie loved music and really wanted to play the flute. She started taking music lessons when she was eleven years old, in fourth grade. Even when she was young, Valerie was interested in writing her own music. She started writing symphonies as a hobby, using a portable organ she had at home. By age fourteen, she had already written three full symphonies! She also won several local and state music competitions and played the flute in a youth orchestra. She graduated from Louisville Male High School.

Valerie and all her sisters went to college. Valerie earned two degrees from Boston University: one in music theory and music composition, and another in flute performance. Later, she earned a master's degree in flute performance from Mannes College of Music. Valerie studied flute with many great teachers, including Julius Baker. She also studied composition with Martin Amlin and Randall Woolf.

Creating Imani Winds

In 1996, while she was still a student, Valerie Coleman started planning a chamber music group. She decided to call it Imani Winds. "Imani" is a Swahili word that means "faith." She looked for African American woodwind players who shared a similar cultural background and way of thinking about classical music.

Valerie explained why she wanted to start the group:

I used to be in the youth orchestra [as a child], and there were so many African Americans. But somewhere along the line, when I got to college, I was the only one in the orchestra. So I wondered what in the world happened here? It came to my mind that role models are needed.

The group grew to five members: Valerie Coleman on flute, Toyin Spellman-Diaz on oboe, Monica Ellis on bassoon, Mariam Adam on clarinet, and Jeff Scott on french horn. From the very beginning, the group wanted to highlight composers who were not often heard, especially those from non-European backgrounds in modern music. Their music often includes influences from many different cultures, like music from Africa, Latin America, and North America.

In 2001, Imani Winds won the Concert Artists Guild competition. Over the next few years, they released five albums around the world with the E1 Music label. Many of the songs on these albums were composed by Valerie Coleman herself. The New Orleans Times Picayune newspaper said about their music, "As an ensemble, the Imani Winds cultivate the big, rich sound one associates with classical players -- and they also display the daring, respond in-the moment qualities one associates with a swinging jazz combo."

The group became resident artists at the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. They have performed in major concert halls all across the United States. Imani Winds has won awards from Artists International and the 2005 ASCAP/WQXR-FM Award for Adventurous Programming. They were also honored at the 2007 ASCAP Concert Music Awards.

NPR Music named their album Terra Incognita one of the "5 Best American Contemporary Classical Albums Of 2010." They said that Imani Winds is known for adding new and important music to the wind quintet collection. According to the Cleveland Classical, "Imani Winds have carved a unique path into the world of classical chamber music for themselves through inventive programs, commissioning projects, and educational activities, and above all superb musicianship."

Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival

In 2009, Valerie Coleman came up with the idea for the Imani Winds Chamber Music Festival. This festival is both a learning program and a concert series. It takes place at the Lincoln Center Campus in New York City. The festival brings together artists from the United States and other countries.

In 2012, the festival started including composers through its Emerging Composers Program. This program offered special classes with composers like Mohammed Fairouz and Daniel Bernard Roumain. Famous guest artists like Stefon Harris and Paula Robison also participated.

Valerie's Solo Career

Valerie Coleman performed as a flutist and composer for the first time at Carnegie Hall in 2004. Before that, she was a stand-in for flutist Eugenia Zukerman at Lincoln Center. Valerie was also a featured soloist at the Mannes College of Music's Mannes 2000 Bach Festival. She has performed and premiered her works at famous places like Alice Tully Hall, Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, and The Kennedy Center.

Her compositions and performances are often played on classical radio stations in the United States. She has been featured on New York's classical radio station WQXR. She has also appeared on NPR shows like Performance Today and All Things Considered. In April 2008, she was featured in Flutist Quarterly magazine.

Valerie has received requests to create new music from many groups. These include the San Francisco Chamber Orchestra, the Brooklyn Philharmonic, and The National Flute Association.

She has also been a teacher for the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. She has taught at the Juilliard School's Music Advancement Program. Valerie has given flute masterclasses at many universities, including SUNY Purchase and Ohio State. She is also on the advisory panel for the National Flute Association.

Valerie's Compositions

Valerie Coleman is the main composer for Imani Winds. However, the group also plays music by other members and composers. Valerie's style mixes modern orchestra sounds with genres like jazz and Afro-Cuban music. She has added many new pieces to the music written for the flute. She has also written for wind quintet, full orchestra, woodwinds, brass, and strings. Many of her works have been published by International Opus.

As a flute player, Valerie Coleman has written many pieces that are now important parts of the flute repertoire. One of these is Danza de la Mariposa. This piece is a "tone poem" written for solo flute. It was inspired by the different types of butterflies found in South America. Valerie also composed Amazonia, a piece for flute and piano. This piece starts by showing the beauty of the Amazon rainforest. But then, the music changes to show darker themes, representing how humans can harm the Amazon rainforest.

She often combines music with the words of important historical figures and poets. Sometimes, she uses parts of speeches from people like Robert F. Kennedy and Cesar Chavez.

When her piece Painted Lady was first performed, The Hartford Courant newspaper said it was "the work of a major talent." This piece was a set of two songs for orchestra and a singer. The songs used words by the African American poet Margaret Danner.

Her famous wind quintet piece Umoja (which means "unity" in Swahili) was named one of the "Top 101 Great American Works" by Chamber Music America in 2002. Umoja was first written for a women's choir to celebrate the first day of Kwanzaa. Since then, Valerie has arranged Umoja for many different groups of instruments. This includes versions for flute quartet, wind trio, brass quintet, and string quartet. Also, Umoja was arranged for orchestra and performed by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 2019. This was the first time the Philadelphia Orchestra performed a piece by a living African American female composer.

Awards and Recognition

Valerie Coleman has received many awards for her amazing work:

• Aspen Music Festival Wombwell Kentucky Award
• Michelle E. Sahm Memorial Award at the Tanglewood Music Festival
• Meet The Composer's Edward and Sally Van Lier Memorial Fund Award, 2003
• Received the Multi-Arts Production Fund – a grant that supports new and creative works in performing arts.
• Performance Today's 2020 Classical Woman of the Year

Grammy Nominations

List of Compositions

Here are some of Valerie Coleman's musical pieces:

For Wind Quintet

• 2001: UMOJA
• 2002: speech. and canzone
• 2005: Afro-Cuban Concerto
• 2006: Suite: Portraits of Josephine - 4 Movements
• 2009: Red Clay and Mississippi Delta - Scherzo
• 2011: Tzigane

Arrangements (music she arranged for wind quintet)

• "Afro Blue - Mongo Santamaria"
• "NKOSI SI KE LEL 'I AFRIKA - Enoch Sontaga" (South African national anthem)
• Spirituals, Vol.1 ("Every Time I Feel the Spirit", "Steal Away", "Little David Play on Your Harp")
• "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing"
• Various holiday songs

For Chamber Music (smaller groups of instruments)

• 2003: UMOJA for wind sextet
• 2005: Sonatine for Clarinet and Piano
• 2006: Maombi Asante - A Prayer of Thanksgiving for flute, violin, and cello
• 2006: Suite: Portraits of Josephine - A Ballet in 8 Movements for chamber ensemble
• 2007: Suite: Portraits of Langston for flute, clarinet & piano
• 2007: LENOX AVENUE for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano
• 2008: Des Filmes Epiques for wind and string quartet
• 2009: Our God of Voiceless Things for choir, wind quintet, and jazz ensemble
• 2011: Four Winds of Ol' Forester for flute, violin, cello and mp3
• 2012: Rubispheres for flute, clarinet and bassoon
• 2012: Ruby St. Nola for three C flutes
• Pontchartrain for flute choir

For Orchestra (large groups of instruments)

• 2005: The Painted Lady
• 2018: Phenomenal Women
• 2019: UMOJA
• 2020: Seven O'Clock Shout

For Concert Band

• 2008: UMOJA
• 2009: ROMA
• 2013: Arabia for intermediate concert band

For Solo Flute

• 2011: Danza de la Mariposa (Theodore Presser)

Discography

Imani Winds Albums

Studio albums

• 2002: Umoja
• 2005: The Classical Underground (E1 Music)
• 2006: Imani Winds (E1)
• 2007: Josephine Baker: A Life of le Jazz Hot (E1)
• 2008: This Christmas with Imani Winds (E1)
• 2010: Terra Incognita (E1)
• 2013: Mohammed Fairouz: Native Informant (Naxos Records)
• 2013: Without a Net (Blue Note Records)

Personal Life

Valerie Coleman lives with her husband, Jonathan Page, and their daughter, Lisa.