Chamber wind quintet founded in 1976 in Bogota, Columbia who have been based in Queens, New York since 1979. Their work has seen the quintet commissioning over 70 works and broadening the inter-cultural knowledge and appreciation of music from the Americas. They have also collaborated with any other ensembles and guest artists.
The quintet has toured the Americas and Eastern Europe and performed concerts at numerous venues and festivals in the United States, including events by Carnegie Hall, Weill Recital Hall and the Library of Congress, along with the Sonidos de Cuba and Sonidos de Mexico festivals for the American Composers Orchestra.
Between 1994 and 1997 it was awarded five Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Foundation Chamber Music America Residence Program grants and have been resident artists in the United Sates at the America’s Society, Hunter College, New York University, Austin Peay State University and Northwestern University. They have also held residencies at the Conservatory of Music in the Republic of Georgia and the Kharkiv Special Secondary Music School in the Ukraine. In 2002 it received an NEA/Chamber Music America Special Commissioning Award for a commission by Judith Sainte Croix and in 2003 it received a Jerome Composers Commissioning Program Grant for commissioning Robert Paterson.
The quintet has released several CDs which include Quintet of the Americas Self Portrait, Discovering the New Word, Never Sing Before Breakfast, XANGO, Dancing in Colombia, James Cohn: A Grecian Festival, Sounds of Brazil and Souvenirs.
It is also involved in outreach programs for Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall Neighborhood Concerts, the 92nd Street Y and Fondacion Batuta in Columbia among others where it helps to allow audiences to hear new music and composers in community spaces.
Sources:
- https://quintet.org/history.html
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quintet_of_the_Americas
- https://quintetoftheamericas.org/
- https://jamesarts.com/artists-archive/quintet-of-the-americas/
- https://www.nyc-arts.org/organizations/quintet-of-the-americas-2/
- https://www.discogs.com/artist/1007346-Quintet-Of-The-Americas
- https://www.allmusic.com/artist/quintet-of-the-americas-mn0000070822