Amy Denio's prenatal days were bubbling with sound, since both her parents played contrabass.
She was an advanced musician at her father's elementary school, and studied piano for 6 years, but was always happier while improvising.
By the time she was 12, she quit piano lessons, grabbed her sister's guitar and taught herself Beatles songs, but grew bored with regular chords, and started writing her own songs. She bought an acoustic-electric guitar at 14, kept writing songs, and joined at rock band at 15.
When she was 17, she exaggerated her age, and performed her songs in local bars on her 12-string guitar.
In her college years, she spent a lot of time in electronic music labs, recording and improvising, composing, doing a radio show & producing live radio broadcasts, playing in rock bands, and living in Amherst Massachusetts and Colorado Springs. She also worked in libraries and television stations, and sold time for KRCC-FM radio.
After school, she got a blank fortune cookie when looking for jobs in New York City, so she decided to live in Western Massachusetts, where she founded Lao Tse and the Entropics, a multi-instrumental duo featuring 2 drum sets, 2 saxophones, bass, guitar, keyboards, and vocals. In 1985, The Entropics moved to Seattle, and her life opened up dramatically. She started The Tone Dogs and the Billy Tipton Memorial Saxophone Quartet, among other bands.
Since then, she's recorded & collaborated with a plethora of musicians & artists, ranging from drummer Matt Cameron to Chuck D to KMFDM to Roy Paci to Martin Hayes. She started her label Spoot Music in 1986, and has released over 40 CDs in collaboration with musicians around the world. She has recorded a dozen sound tracks for modern dance, and also for theater and cinema.
She first toured Europe with the Tone Dogs in 1988, and since then she's performed throughout the Balkans and Eastern Europe, in Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Hong Kong, Greece and Sicily. She's received grants to collaborate with bands in Estonia, Hungary, and Bulgaria, Austria, and from Russia, and produced a CD of Taiwanese songs set to Brazilian Samba beats (performed by teenagers) in Taipei. She also headlined at the Oberoi Hotel in Bombay, India for 7 weeks.
She's received a few dozen grants and fellowships; in 2008 she received a Paul Goode Fellowship in Ireland. She sings, and composes for dance, theater, film, symphonies, metro buses and is currently creating & installing an interactive musical bench at the Seattle Center Monorail Station. She also teaches and conducts music workshops.
Denio played in Kultur Shock from Halloween, 1999 until May Day 2004, and then returned in January 2009 to participate in the state of Kultur Shock once again.
Live, she sings, plays guitar, alto sax and clarinet with her brothers and sister, very enjoyable.
http://www.myspace.com/deniomusic
http://www.myspace.com/tiptons
http://www.youtube.com/deniaural (I've made many short videos/adventure slide shows)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/deniaural (my travel photos)
