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This story was published in St. Charles County Post on Thursday, November 1, 2001.

Woodwind quintet will play "Bushy Wushy Rag" at SCC

By Esther Talbot Fenning
Special To The St. Charles County Post

The all-woman woodwind quintet represented St. Louis on PBS when it performed its original rag on a program titled "Continental Harmony: New Music for the Millennium."

The Equinox Chamber Players are dedicated to education, entertainment and exposing audiences to the variety of music that exists throughout the world.

The all-woman woodwind quintet performs solo recitals and conducts workshops and forums for thousands of children and adults in more than 40 venues every year throughout the St. Louis area.

On Sunday, it represented St. Louis on PBS when it performed its original work "Bushy Wushy Rag" on a program titled "Continental Harmony: New Music for the Millennium." The national project was designed to link communities with composers to celebrate the new millennium through the creation of original musical works.

From 58 sites across the United States, the Equinox Chamber Players was one of four groups to be selected to participate in the documentary.

Equinox spokeswoman and French horn player Carole Lemire described the work as a musical celebration of the history, culture and vitality of the people of St. Louis.

"It's as boisterously American as ragtime and the game of baseball, and it bridges the gap between art and pop culture, the concert hall and the ballpark, the salon and the saloon," Lemire said.

The Equinox Chamber Players will perform "Bushy Wushy Rag" in a concert at 3 p.m. Sunday at St. Charles Community College. Theirs is the second in a series of four Sunday afternoon concerts at the Donald D. Shook Fine Arts Building on the SCC campus.

Sunday's program will also include music from Latvia, a few Spanish pieces and the tango, rumba and volero from Latin America.

"It's a real fun program," Lemire said.

Elke Overton is assistant professor of music at the college and the organizer of the Concert Artist Series. This is the second season for the series. It was organized in an effort to offer quality music close to home and to provide an opportunity for music students on the college and high school level to hear live music from professional musicians.

"Music can be such a release from daily life, and the more variety we have the broader our audiences will be," she said.

The first performance of the season was by Roberta Piket and her Jazz Trio - a New York City-based group that played original jazz compositions as well as reworking of the old standards. The Poor People of Paris, a French folk and cabaret music ensemble from St. Louis, will perform on Jan. 20. The music is a bit more on the folksy side, Overton said. Classical guitarists Kirk Hanser and John McClellan will perform on April. 28. Hanser and McClellan perform regularly at the Sheldon concert hall and have recorded several CDs. McClellan teaches guitar at Webster University, and Hanser teaches at SCC.

Overton said that the size of the audiences varied depending on the group. Feedback has been gratifying, she said. Many people have told her that audiences don't know what they're missing by not attending the concerts.

"I often talk to the guy who runs the Sheldon, and he has remarked that he gets a wide variety in numbers for each concert," she said. "Being as this is only our second season, I would say our concert series are well attended."

Overton said that the Equinox Players balanced out last year's brass quintet.

"They're wonderful performers, and it's going to be a good experience for our students and the groups in our ensemble to learn what chamber music and especially woodwind players are really about and how a classical chamber ensemble is so much different from a full chamber orchestra."

The members of the Equinox Chamber Players are Cathy Lane on the flute, Ann Homann on the oboe, Jeanine York-Garesche on the clarinet, Donita Bauer on the bassoon and Lemire on the French horn. Each player is an active free-lance musician, and all are educators at different universities and schools. They live in the University City area and Shaw-Tower Grove neighborhoods. They are all married, and one has children.

As busy as they are, they are committed to Equinox. Plans include a residency at Dillard University in New Orleans for a week after Mardi Gras. The group will perform at a festival of African and African-American music while in New Orleans. That event was held last year in St. Louis.

They are helping to organize Project Earth Day, an event that will be held at the University of Missouri at St. Louis. The four-day event will be a celebration of the earth, Lemire said, which will align the study of human relationships with the land, animals and insects.

The group is affiliated with OASIS, an organization that provides lectures, artistic performances and projects for older people.

"To be a free-lancer is to be free at any given moment, but we are committed to education and to bringing our music to as many people as possible," Lemire said.

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Concert Artist Series

* Performers: The Equinox Chamber Players, a woodwind quintet.

* When: 3 p.m. Sunday.

* Where: The Donald D. Shook Fine Arts Building, St. Charles Community College, 4601 Mid Rivers Mall Drive, Cottleville.

* Cost: $7 in advance or at the door.

* Information: 636-922-8050.

Top collage by J Kearns.

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