The Belonging Project: A Musical Bridge Through Walls
Celebrating nearly three decades of transformative music-making, the Grammy-winning Imani Winds returns to Ann Arbor on October 26 in a special performance with composer-percussionist Andy Akiho. Their collaboration, The Belonging Project, stands as a compelling testament to music’s capacity to transcend, to heal, and to give voice to those who cannot speak up themselves.
A Meeting of Mission and Sound
Imani Winds by Titilayo Ayangade
Imani Winds has long championed adventurous programming and repertoire beyond convention. Their name, meaning “faith” in Swahili, signals the ensemble’s deep commitment to representation and purpose. Imani’s programming reflects the urgency of our times, amplifying stories often left unheard.
Andy Akiho by Da Ping Luo
Andy Akiho is a composer and virtuoso percussionist whose works often blur the lines between classical forms and sonic worlds. When Imani and Akiho came together for Belonging, their partnership did not just become an artistic endeavor, but a profound social one.
Their new piece, BeLoud, BeLoved, BeLonging was born from a spark of indignation, solidarity, and curiosity, and an urge to respond to protest and confinement, and marginalized voices.
The Origins
The seed of BeLoud, BeLoved, BeLonging was planted in 2019, when Andy Akiho and Imani Winds heard, from the street, the sounds of immigrants pounding on walls and windows at a Brooklyn detention center during a protest over freezing and unsanitary conditions.
“We couldn’t hear such rhythmic sounds of protest and NOT be moved by them,” the artists recalled in an article by Musical America.
From that moment, the project deepened. Imani Winds commissioned the new piece by Akiho, and brought elements of it back to Rikers Island, where incarcerated young men participated in workshops and improvisatory sessions. Drumming on books, trash cans, and tables, they made music in confinement and silenced spaces.
This feedback loop, between outside concert halls and inside walls of detention, is central to understanding the piece. The art does not merely mimic protest; it interacts with protest’s echo, its roots, and its bodies.
The Structure
Originally conceived as a three-movement cycle, BeLoud, BeLoved, BeLonging blossomed into seven movements, each with its own character and role, as described below in its album notes:
Loud tells the origin story, with actual audio footage of the protest itself, the words shot into and out of a vacuum chamber.
BeLoud begins with a unison, lock-stepped meandering loop, interspersed with a repetitive clanging from the lower instruments, perhaps evoking the sound of people banging on the walls of the detention center. The movement grows in density and virtuosity as it progresses, ending with tightly wound swirls that come to an abrupt end.
Loved is a brief steel pan solo interlude, an improvisation on some of the motives from other movements.
BeLoved is open arms, it is circling high above the ground on a cloudless day, it is a moment to breathe, it is a composite sound equally made by all the players.
Longing, a steel pan solo, spills over into itself again and again. It flirts with perpetual motion or the infinite.
BeLonging starts simply with militaristic and percussive motives, and adds more and more layers of virtuosity as it moves inexorably forward. The extended clarinet solo provides a welcome break in the momentum, but by the end, the movement has become both firmly rooted and flying free, with a complicated bassoon reveille that signals its close.
Being — The final movement is the musical continuation of the many questions and answers raised in the creation, planning, and execution of the project. It keeps the cyclical nature of this party going, with circular electronic samples and recordings of all of the artists speaking to the humanity of our country’s most marginalized people.
Recording and Tour
The Belonging album was released in June 2024, and received Grammy nominations in two categories: Best Classical Compendium and Best Classical Instrumental Solo.
In the 25/26 performance season, Imani Winds and Andy Akiho perform The Belonging Project at Lincoln Center in New York, here in Ann Arbor, and across other university and arts presenters nationwide. When UMS presents this impactful work on October 26, we invite our audiences to be part of the conversation. Be Loud. Be Loved. Be Longing. And, Be Present.
Tickets start at just $30 (+ fees), with many student ticket discount opportunities available.
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