Women in the Arts with the Music of Beth Denisch Performed by the Equinox Chamber Players

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As part of the University of Missouri-St. Louis' Women in the Arts Internation Conference, on November 10, 2011 the Equinox Chamber Players perform a collaborative concert featuring a cast of all-female composers in honor of Women in the Arts - 2011. The program features works by Beth Denisch, Barbara Harbach and Cynthia Folio, and includes selected movements of by Gay Holmes Spears, Valerie Coleman and Gwyneth Walker. Guest percussionist Shane Williams performs with Equinox on Denisch�s Jordan and the Dog Woman, inspired by Jeanette Winterson's surrealistic novel, Sexing the Cherry. Harbach's Freeing the Caged Bird, inspired by the lives and works of Maya Angelou, Kate Chopin, Sara Teasdale and Emily Hahn, is accompanied by introductions presented by scholar Kathleen Nigro.

A concert of chamber music by Beth Denisch will be presented on Friday, November 11.

Hailed as a composer whose music has "fierce rhythmic patterns," (NY Times) and is "brimmed with personality," (Boston Globe), Beth's repertoire of chamber music is comprehensive and runs the gamut from thoughtful and meditative to wild and powerful.

This evening's program opens with the Forth Project, a set of six miniatures for solo piano based on the paintings of Mark Forth. The performance is accompanied by slide projections of his paintings. The next work, Star ll, features bassoon and percussion and uniquely incorporates traditional and graphic notation with improvisation.

The first half of the program ends with a stirring work, Night Forest Fantasia for viola, celeste and percussion. The score calls for virtuosic performers, (which we were fortunate to have on the UMSL faculty!) Tonight we also feature the world premiere of Denisch's Love Is, Love Says, a choral work inspired by the poetry of Samual Hanser. Jim Henry leads the Vocal Point singers in this soulful piece. We end our performance this evening with Jordan and the Dog Woman written for woodwind quintet and percussion. The music was inspired by Jeanette Winterson's phantasmagorical novel Sexing the Cherry and was commissioned and recorded by the Equinox Chamber Players.

Featuring the Equinox Chamber Players, Shane Williams - Percussion, Alla Voskoboynikova and David Doran - Piano, Joanna Mendoza - Viola, Vocal Point singers, conducted by Jim Henry.

Beth Denisch's music has been performed in Moscow, Russia and Bangkok, Thailand, at Jordan Hall in Boston, and Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York, across the U.S. and in Canada, Scotland, Mexico, Greece, Ukraine, and China. It has received radio play and tracks are available online. CDs of her music are on the Albany, Juxtab, and Interval labels and scores are published and/or distributed by Juxtab Music, ClearNote Publications, and TrevCo Music.

Commissioning organizations for her music include the Handel and Haydn Society, St. Louis Historical Society, Equinox Chamber Players, Philadelphia Classical Symphony, and Chamber Orchestra Kremlin. Denisch is Associate Professor at Berklee College of Music and active in the Feminist Theory and Music organization. Visit her at http://bethdenisch.com

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