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This review of Dark Winds Rising was published in American Record Guide, March/April 2008.

Wind Chamber Music

Equinox Chamber Players
Albany 946--66 minutes

These are pieces new to the repertoire of the woodwind quintet. The Equinox Chamber Players is a group of musicians from St. Louis who enjoy original works and arrangements and performing for large student and adult audiences in concert and workshops. Two works on the program are by composer John Lampkin, A Walk through Shaw's Garden and Migrations, each with descriptive movement titles setting the listener's expectations rightly on programmatic music. The third work on the program is called Jordan and the Dog Woman by Beth Denisch, and the last work is Dark Winds Rising, also the namesake of the album, by Philip Bimstein. Odd as the titles of the works may be, the pieces are really good and have something to say.

Lampkin's Walk through Shaw's Garden is a tone painting depicting the beauty a visitor sees walking through the Missouri Botanical Gardens. Various inhabitants and locations are portrayed in the movements. For example, his setting of the 'Butterfly and the Rose' uses flute for the butterfly and clarinet for the rose. Their performance most delicately paints the picture of the butterfly eventually coming to rest on the rose. Other settings, such as 'Orpheus, Eurydice, and the Dancers'--statues in the Botanical Gardens--are inspired perhaps by the delightful music of Milhaud and Ibert.

Jordan and the Dog Woman is a suite based on four scenes from Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson. Winterson's novel is a rather surreal piece of English fiction set in 17th Century London about an orphan, Jordan, and the Dog Woman, who is perhaps the boy's mother or keeper. The music is likewise surreal, and Denisch has done a fine job of integrating various percussion sounds into the work. The ensemble could not have done a finer job in performing the piece. There is very sensitive playing going on here, and this piece certainly stands out among the rest.

Lampkin's Migrations is also a tone painting. This time, each movement brings sound to various creatures' migratory behavior. The 'Slamon' indeed sound like fish swimming against the current, and the adorable 'Red Crabs' sound like they have spiny legs that move as fast as one can see. Humor is most definitely a part of this music, especially when portraying the "Three-toed Sloth'. The succinct liner notes describe this movement as a spoof on minimalism; indeed, the piece ends barely after it begins. The other movements are also a delight.

Before I listened to Dark Winds Rising I thought it might be unbearably weird, but I was wrong. It is the best piece on the program. Inspiration for the piece comes from the patterns of speech as Vivienne Jake, a native of an Indian reservation in northern Arizona, tells of a proposed toxic waste incincerator to be built near her native land. Bimstein uses a looped recording of her voice and accompanies it with the instruments imitating the patterns, rhythms, and melodic tendencies of her speech. The composer wrote it originally for string quartet, and a transcription for wind quintet was commissioned later for the Sierra Winds. I hear influences from some other artists and composers in this work, though it really is unique. There are elements mildly reminiscent of Laurie Anderson, Gavin Bryars, and even John Adams. Equinox Player's performance is a work of art. The music is as much a social commentary as a work of modern music.

This album is worth the effort to find and add to your collection.

Schwartz

Top photo by James Visser/Visserphoto.com.

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