The Imani Winds are probably the best-known ensemble of their kind, but I'd managed to miss hearing them play before last Tuesday. I was a little scared off by their extremely NPR-friendly discography, which includes a tribute to Josephine Baker, a Christmas record and other assortments of classical bonbons.

Now, more than one composer cringes at the thought of writing a piece for woodwind quintet. The Wind Quintet Problem: to create a single coherent texture out of an oboe, a flute, a clarinet, a bassoon and a French horn. These are some of the orchestra's sweetest voices, but in a symphony their function is almost decorative. It's easy for the piece to come out sounding hollow - five soloists in search of an accompanist.

Having braced myself for a rattling junk drawer of mismatched timbres, I felt my body relax the moment the Imanis launched into their first piece on the program, Scherzo for Woodwind Quintet by Eugene Bozza. The piece relays a Flight of the Bumblebee-style melody from each member of the ensemble to the next in turn, but the sounds of the instruments were so well matched that the handoffs were nearly indistinguishable.

Similar handoffs in Gyorgy Ligeti's challenging Six Bagatelles were a little rougher. Challenging for the players, I mean, not for the audience - especially relative to Ligeti's avant-garde oeuvre - and the quintet brought the piece's lyrical qualities to the fore. Heitor Villa-Lobos' Quintette en Forme de Choros, after intermission, seemed strident by comparison.

But the real meat of the program was Puerto Rican composer Roberto Sierra's Concierto de Camera for winds and string quartet, created by the Imanis as part of their awesome Legacy Commissioning Project for composers of color. (There is not a white face in the Imani Winds. That's a rarity in the classical music world, which raises the question: What in the hell is wrong with the classical music world?) The Jasper Quartet, who opened the program by reprising a Haydn piece from their recent recital, helped solve the Wind Quintet Problem by accompanying the Imanis through a sturdily wrought, player-friendly score sure to enter the mainstream woodwind repertoire.