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A native of South Carolina, Imani has been living in the Washington, DC area for over 20 years. She is a graduate of the University of South Carolina with a B.A. in Journalism. Her vocal training includes the New England Conservatory, Berklee School of Music and Howard University.
As a jazz and world vocalist, her diverse talents have led to collaborations with many national and international musical ensembles, film and television projects. Most notably, Imani’s voice was featured on the musical soundtrack of the Emmy nominated film The Jane Goodall Biography and on many of the National Geographic Television’s Explorer Series soundtracks. Since 1989, she continues to be the first and only American to perform and tour with the genuinely traditional Ghanaian ensemble Yacub Addy and ODADAA.
She performs and conducts vocal workshops concentrating on traditional world music nationally from the cultures of Asia, West and South Africa, South America and the Caribbean. She has performed traditional African music for the Smithsonian Institute, Smithsonian’s Folklife Festival, and the World Music Institute. Imani is a Roster Artist with the Louisiana Division of the Arts, South Carolina Arts Commission and Maryland State Arts Council. She is a recipient of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities Fellowship Grant, a grant recipient and featured artist in the Prince George’s Arts Council Arts-In-Education Program and a grant recipient of the Artist-In-Education program for the Maryland State Arts Council.
Imani performs with her own world/beat jazz ensemble, for which she debuted her 1997 CD entitled COLLAGE, 2000 CD entitled BETWEEN HERE AND THERE and her newly released CD entitled CALLING YOU. As Susan K. Oetgen of the Latin American Folk Institute wrote, “She sings every song with her soul rooted firmly in it, and knows exactly what part of the journey it is.”
As well as a performing artist, Imani teaches privately and is an education associate for Imagination Quest, resident artist for the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Maryland State Arts Council and workshop presenter with the Kennedy Center Partners-In-Education National Touring Program.
Imani most recently performed, toured, and recorded with Wynton Marsallis and Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and has published two new children’s world music books with sing-a-long CD’s, entitled DHIMIKI and IYIPO AYÉ.
Exploring the art of story and song
 Imani Gonzalez
P.O. Box 21631
Washington, DC 20009
Phone (202) 588-1266
Fax (202) 667-9737
Email: imani9@acninc.net
www.globalvoices.info
imagine, sing, soar and dance!
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