When Imani Winds comes to town, the group will be performing works by Pavel Haas, Brian DuFord, and Valerie Coleman, well as arrangements by Debussy and Stravinsky. Composers you may not know? Arrangements of the great masters? What's that all about? According to Toyin Spellman-Diaz, "that" is the challenge facing the woodwind quintet.

"First, picking a woodwind instrument - now, that takes a special kind of crazy," says Spellman-Diaz, oboist for Imani Winds. "Our whole mission is to expand the repertoire of wind quintets into as many different sounds and styles as possible, be they European, American, African, or Latin American."

Imani Winds is Toyin Spellman-Diaz, oboe; Valerie Coleman, flute/composer; Jeff Scott, French horn/composer; Mariam Adam, clarinet; and Monica Ellis, bassoon. Founded in 1997,the quintet has performed all over the country and the world in its 15 years. The group has recorded six CDs, including 2005's "The Classical Underground," which received a Grammy nomination in 2006 in the category "Best Classical Crossover Album."

Spellman-Diaz acknowledges that the reputation of the group may precede the reputation of some of the composers on its programs. "We have developed a good reputation at this point," she says. "Wherever we go, whether we're speaking or teaching or giving a concert, we ask people to go on that journey with us and we do it with love. You can feel that every second. We're giving you our feeling of vertigo, of stepping outside the box."

The imagery of a "box inside a circle" is one that Spellman-Diaz has used before to explain the sensation of being a "classical cross-over." "The quintet didn't come into its own until the 20th Century. People didn't think of asking the composers to write for it. Even Mozart, who was a great proponent of wind instruments, never got around to the woodwind quintet. Nobody paid for him to write for one," says Spellman-Diaz.

To face the challenge of repertoire that doesn't include the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, or Saint-Saens, Spellman-Diaz credits three ingredients in the group's recipe for success. First, be willing to perform works by unknown or little-known composers. Second, include musicians in the performance group who are composers. Third, mix vision with execution.

"The repertoire was due for a change," says Spellman-Diaz. "We're happy to be one of the groups at the forefront." Indeed, the Imani Winds website uses self-descriptors like "genre-blurring" and "bridging."

Recently, the group embarked on the "Zafir Project," taking its title from a piece that the group previously commissioned, "Zafir," by Palestinian composer Simon Shaheen. The purpose of the project is "unearthing sounds and creating possibilities on wind instruments not thought possible," according to the group's website.

"Shaheen writes notes in between notes, works with rhythms not within classical music - that combination of different tones, styles, and interpretations is what one hears when one hears Middle Eastern music on the radio," says Spellman-Diaz.

For Imani Winds, it's not just about playing whatever comes its way. Whether selecting a composer to commission or a piece of music to play, for this group it's either unanimous or it's not at all. "Our first priority is to have a composer we - and I do mean all five of us - like. We cannot have even one person feel even slightly wishy-washy about it," says Spellman-Diaz.

Spellman-Diaz describes the process of arriving at commissions and compositions as starting with group members Valerie Coleman and Jeff Scott. "They are constantly bringing in whatever is on their iPhone," says Spellman-Diaz. "We are all constantly listening to different types of music to see if it would work or doesn't work. There is a constant cycle of trying out new things and moving on."

There is, of course, the practical issue of money. "When you want to get a piece done, you go to the people who have the money," says Spellman-Diaz. She points out that patrons of the art are not people living on Park Avenue, passing out money; it is a competitive process to win $10,000 contributions for commissions.

"You have to go through the logistics of what will make an idea not just some far-fetched crazy idea, but one that will come to fruition in some meaningful way," says Spellman-Diaz.

For the past two years, after commissioning "Zafir," the group has been diving into sounds of the Middle East and Eastern Europe. Clarinetist Mariam Adam is half-Egyptian and half-Mexican. Spellman-Diaz has a friend who plays music from Persia. Members of the group are based in NYC, where she says "all sorts of cultures come together."

All this experimentation has put Imani Winds back into the recording studio. "We've been concertizing this music for a couple of years, and people really like what we're playing and they're asking for a recording," says Spellman-Diaz. "We had to put it down. We couldn't wait any longer."

Amidst all the detail, the conversation with Spellman-Diaz comes around to a simple synthesis of what it really takes to become such an unconventional success surrounded by the strictures of classical music: "Erase the fear - period."

Imani Winds

Tuesday, January 31

Kilbourn Hall, Eastman School of Music, 26 Gibbs St.

8 p.m. | $10-$20 | 274-1100, esm.rochester.edu