Amy Denio
Encyclopedia
Amy Denio is a Seattle (USA)-based multi-instrumental composer of soundtrack
s for modern dance
, film
and theater, as well as a songwriter
and music improviser. Often called an unclassifiable avant-garde
jazz
musician, she is also deeply inspired by world music
. She is probably best known as a vocalist, accordion
ist and saxophone
-player. Among her current musical involvements are The Tiptons Sax Quartet
(formerly The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet) and Die Resonanz Stanonczi, a radical folk group based in Salzburg
, Austria. She has also collaborated repeatedly with the Pat Graney Dance Company, David Dorfman
Dance Company, Victoria Marks
, and with many other choreographers.
Her first recording was No Bones released as a cassette on her record label Spoot Music in 1986. Her first LP
was with the Entropics. She founded Tiptons in 1987, and also started Tone Dogs with bassist Fred Chalenor. Tone Dogs' first release Ankety Low Day was nominated to be nominated (sic) for a Grammy Award. She has performed and recorded with (among others) Matt Cameron
, KMFDM
, Curlew
, Fred Frith
, Pointless Orchestra, Francisco López
, Danny Barnes
, Pale Nudes, Blowhole, the Danubians, The Science Group
, Chris Cutler
, Guy Klucevsek
, Pauline Oliveros
, Relâche
Ensemble, Hoppy Kamiyama
, Derek Bailey, Chuck D
, Dennis Rea
, Bill Rieflin, Quintetto alla busara, Kultur Shock
and the Shaking Ray Levis
.
in Bloomfield Hills from kindergarten through 12th grade, graduating in 1979. She became a autodidactic musician at age 12, quitting piano and starting guitar. She attended Colorado College
, and also Hampshire College
, graduating with a B.A. in Music Composition and Improvisation from Hampshire in 1984. She is self-taught on guitar, electric bass, drums, saxophone, clarinet, accordion, and various world instruments.
She was sponsored by Jazz India to live in Bombay and study Thumri
, Northern Indian vocal technique from Dhanashree Pandit-Rai in 1997.
Since 1988, she has performed at festivals in India, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, North America, and throughout East and Western Europe.
From 1985-1990, Denio was Programming Office Coordinator at the World Headquarters of Yesco Foreground Music, which merged with Muzak.
In 2007 she was commissioned by the Dream Community in Taipei
, Taiwan
to arrange, record and produce Taiwanese aboriginal
and popular music with samba
rhythms from Brazil
. These arrangements were performed by junior high school students at the Camphor Tree School, who are from the Amis tribe of Taiwan.
She has taught workshops on composition, improvisation, and extended vocal techniques throughout the US and Europe.
Soundtrack
A soundtrack can be recorded music accompanying and synchronized to the images of a motion picture, book, television program or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack of a film or TV show; or the physical area of a film that contains the...
s for modern dance
Modern dance
Modern dance is a dance form developed in the early 20th century. Although the term Modern dance has also been applied to a category of 20th Century ballroom dances, Modern dance as a term usually refers to 20th century concert dance.-Intro:...
, film
Film
A film, also called a movie or motion picture, is a series of still or moving images. It is produced by recording photographic images with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects...
and theater, as well as a songwriter
Songwriter
A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...
and music improviser. Often called an unclassifiable avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
musician, she is also deeply inspired by world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
. She is probably best known as a vocalist, accordion
Accordion
The accordion is a box-shaped musical instrument of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone family, sometimes referred to as a squeezebox. A person who plays the accordion is called an accordionist....
ist and saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
-player. Among her current musical involvements are The Tiptons Sax Quartet
The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet
The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet is an all-female, jazz saxophone quartet from Seattle, Washington. They actually consist of five members...
(formerly The Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet) and Die Resonanz Stanonczi, a radical folk group based in Salzburg
Salzburg
-Population development:In 1935, the population significantly increased when Salzburg absorbed adjacent municipalities. After World War II, numerous refugees found a new home in the city. New residential space was created for American soldiers of the postwar Occupation, and could be used for...
, Austria. She has also collaborated repeatedly with the Pat Graney Dance Company, David Dorfman
David Dorfman
David Dorfman is an American teen actor. His most notable role was as Aidan Keller in the 2002 horror film remake The Ring, and its 2005 sequel The Ring Two. He has also appeared in the 2000 film Panic as Sammy. Some people may remember him as the character "Charles Wallace Murry" in the film...
Dance Company, Victoria Marks
Victoria Marks
Victoria Marks is a professor of choreography in the Department of World Arts and Cultures at UCLA, where she has been teaching since 1995...
, and with many other choreographers.
Her first recording was No Bones released as a cassette on her record label Spoot Music in 1986. Her first LP
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
was with the Entropics. She founded Tiptons in 1987, and also started Tone Dogs with bassist Fred Chalenor. Tone Dogs' first release Ankety Low Day was nominated to be nominated (sic) for a Grammy Award. She has performed and recorded with (among others) Matt Cameron
Matt Cameron
Matthew David "Matt" Cameron is an American musician who serves as the drummer for the American rock bands Pearl Jam and Soundgarden...
, KMFDM
KMFDM
KMFDM is an industrial band led by German multi-instrumentalist Sascha Konietzko, who founded the group in 1984 as a performance art project...
, Curlew
Curlew (band)
Curlew is an experimental free jazz group founded by saxophone player George Cartwright in 1979. Members of the band have included cellist Tom Cora, guitarists Davey Williams and Fred Frith, and bassist Bill Laswell.-Discography:*Curlew...
, Fred Frith
Fred Frith
Fred Frith is an English multi-instrumentalist, composer and improvisor.Probably best known for his guitar work, Frith first came to attention as one of the founding members of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow. Frith was also a member of Art Bears, Massacre and Skeleton Crew...
, Pointless Orchestra, Francisco López
Francisco López (musician)
Francisco López is an avant-garde experimental musician and sound artist.He has released a large amount of sound pieces with record labels from more than fifty countries and realized hundreds of concerts and sound installations worldwide; including some of the main international museums, galleries...
, Danny Barnes
Danny Barnes
Danny Barnes is a banjo and guitar player whose music is influenced by country, jazz and punk. Born in Temple, Texas and raised in Belton, Barnes was exposed to music at a young age: he recalls picking up a love of country and bluegrass from his father and grandmother, Delta blues from one brother...
, Pale Nudes, Blowhole, the Danubians, The Science Group
The Science Group
The Science Group were an avant-rock group founded in France in 1997 by English drummer Chris Cutler from Henry Cow and Yugoslav contemporary classical composer and keyboardist Stevan Tickmayer...
, Chris Cutler
Chris Cutler
Chris Cutler is an English percussionist, composer, lyricist and music theorist. Best known for his work with English avant-rock group Henry Cow, Cutler was also a member and drummer of a number of other bands, including Art Bears, News from Babel, Pere Ubu and Gong/Mothergong...
, Guy Klucevsek
Guy Klucevsek
Guy Klucevsek is an American-born accordionist and composer.Klucevsek is one of relatively few accordion players active in jazz and free improvisation....
, Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
, Relâche
Relâche (musical group)
Relâche is an American chamber ensemble dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music. Based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the group was formed as a composer-performer collective by Joseph Franklin and Joseph Showalter in 1977 and was officially granted not-for-profit status in...
Ensemble, Hoppy Kamiyama
Hoppy Kamiyama
Hoppy Kamiyama is a Japanese keyboardist and music producer who has worked with artists such as eX-Girl, Bradford Reed, Bill Laswell, Jan Linton, Marc Ribot, Hugh Hopper/Elton Dean and Damo Suzuki.- Biography :...
, Derek Bailey, Chuck D
Chuck D
Carlton Douglas Ridenhour , better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.- Early life :Ridenhour was born in Queens, New York...
, Dennis Rea
Dennis Rea
Dennis Rea is an American guitarist, writer and music event organizer currently living in Seattle. Rea first came to prominence as a member of the electronic music group Earthstar in the late 1970s and early 1980s. He is probably best known in the West as a musician for his work with the quintet...
, Bill Rieflin, Quintetto alla busara, Kultur Shock
Kultur Shock
Kultur Shock is a Seattle-based gypsy punk band which specializes in mixing modern music like rock, metal and punk with traditional Balkan music.-Biography:...
and the Shaking Ray Levis
Shaking Ray Levis
The Shaking Ray Levis is an ongoing collaboration of musicians with a common interest in free improvisation. The project was conceived and led by the Chattanooga, Tennessee-based team of Dennis Palmer and Bob Stagner. They use storytelling, synthesizers, samplers and percussion to achieve their...
.
Biography
Amy Denio attended the Cranbrook SchoolsCranbrook Schools
Cranbrook Schools is a private, PK–12 school located on a campus in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. The schools comprise a co-educational elementary school, a middle school with separate schools for boys and girls, and a co-educational high school with boarding facilities...
in Bloomfield Hills from kindergarten through 12th grade, graduating in 1979. She became a autodidactic musician at age 12, quitting piano and starting guitar. She attended Colorado College
Colorado College
The Colorado College is a private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell...
, and also Hampshire College
Hampshire College
Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1965 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts...
, graduating with a B.A. in Music Composition and Improvisation from Hampshire in 1984. She is self-taught on guitar, electric bass, drums, saxophone, clarinet, accordion, and various world instruments.
She was sponsored by Jazz India to live in Bombay and study Thumri
Thumri
Thumri is a common genre of semi-classical Indian music.The text is romantic or devotional in nature, and usually revolves around a girl's love for Krishna. The lyrics are usually in Uttar Pradesh dialects of Hindi called Poorbi and Brij Bhasha...
, Northern Indian vocal technique from Dhanashree Pandit-Rai in 1997.
Since 1988, she has performed at festivals in India, Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brazil, Argentina, North America, and throughout East and Western Europe.
From 1985-1990, Denio was Programming Office Coordinator at the World Headquarters of Yesco Foreground Music, which merged with Muzak.
In 2007 she was commissioned by the Dream Community in Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
, Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
to arrange, record and produce Taiwanese aboriginal
Taiwanese aborigines
Taiwanese aborigines is the term commonly applied in reference to the indigenous peoples of Taiwan. Although Taiwanese indigenous groups hold a variety of creation myths, recent research suggests their ancestors may have been living on the islands for approximately 8,000 years before major Han...
and popular music with samba
Samba
Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...
rhythms from Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
. These arrangements were performed by junior high school students at the Camphor Tree School, who are from the Amis tribe of Taiwan.
She has taught workshops on composition, improvisation, and extended vocal techniques throughout the US and Europe.
Discography
- Amy Denio: No Bones (1986 Spoot Music)
- The Entropics: Spagga! (1987 PopLlama RecordsPopLlama RecordsPopLlama Records is an independent record label founded by record producer Conrad Uno in Seattle, Washington, in 1984. After making several of his own demos in his basement studio, Uno would produce the Young Fresh Fellows' debut album The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest at the bands request...
) - Amy Denio: Never Too Old To Pop A Hole (1988 Spoot Music)
- Amy Denio: No Elevators (1988 Spoot Music)
- Amy Denio: Birthing Chair Blues (1991 Spoot Music)
- Tone Dogs: Ankety Low Day (1991 Spoot Music)
- Tone Dogs: Early Middle Years (1992 Spoot Music)
- Amy Denio: Tongues (1993 Spoot Music)
- Curlew: A Beautiful Western Saddle (1993 Cuneiform Records)
- Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet: Saxhouse (1993 Spoot & Zipa Music)
- The (EC) Nudes: Vanishing Point (1994 ReR)
- BTMSQ: make it funky god (1994 hornhut records)
- Blowhole: Gathering (1994 co-op release by Giardia, Fusetron & Carburetor record labels)
- Pale Nudes: Wise to the Heat (1995 RecDec)
- Fomoflo: Slug & Firearms (1996 God Mountain)
- Fomoflo: No.11 (1997 God Mountain)
- BTMSQ: Box (1996 New World Records)
- BTMSQ & Ne Zhdali: Pollo d'Oro (1997 No Man's Land)
- Danubians (1999 Cuneiform Records)
- Amy Denio: The Greatest Hits (1999 Unit Circle Rekkids)
- BTMSQ: Sunshine Bundtcake (2000 New World Records)
- Amy Denio: Tattoo [soundtrack] (2000 Unit Circle Rekkids)
- Amy Denio & Petunia: To Lie Tenderly (2000 Spoot Music)
- Amy Denio & Francisco LópezFrancisco López (musician)Francisco López is an avant-garde experimental musician and sound artist.He has released a large amount of sound pieces with record labels from more than fifty countries and realized hundreds of concerts and sound installations worldwide; including some of the main international museums, galleries...
: Belle Confusion 00 (2001 Absolute/Anomalous) - Amy Denio: TASOGARE (Twilight) (2001 Public Eyesore)
- Amy Denio and Quintetto alla Busara: Quintetto alla busara (2002 BBC-Spoot)
- Amy Denio: Chickenhawks Ought Not (2002 Spoot Music)
- George Cartwright: The Memphis Years (2002 Cuneiform Records)
- Billies: Short Cuts (2003 Spoot & Zipa)
- Amy Denio & Martin Hayes: Vivian Girls (2004 Spoot Music)
- Pale Nudes: Soul Come Home (2004 RecDec)
- Tiptons: Tsunami (2004 No Man's Land/Spoot & Zipa)
- Tiptons: Surrounded by Horns (2004 Stockfisch)
- Tiptons: Drive (2005 Spoot & Zipa)
- Amy Denio & Francesco Calandrino: Venerdi' Santo (2006 Spoot Music)
- Derek Bailey/Amy Denio/Dennis Palmer: The Gospel Record (2005 Levi Recordings)
- Die Resonanz Stanonczi: Live At Jazzit (2006 No Man's Land)
- Die Resonanz Stanonczi: Edelbrand (2008 No Man's Land)
- The Tiptons Sax Quartet: Laws Of Motion (2008 Spoot & Zipa)
- Amy Denio: sub-Rosa (2008 Aphonia Recordings)
- The Tiptons Sax Quartet: Strange flower (2010 Spoot & Zipa)
External links
- Amy Denio and Spoot Music
- Michael Upchurch, Seattle vocalist-musician Amy Denio juggles multiple musical beats, Seattle Times, April 3, 2010. Includes three videos of performances.