Performed by Soprano: Elaine Huang; Piano Yi-yang Chen
“Until Now” was commissioned by the KU Asian Classical Music Initiative and premiered on May 19, 2023 at Rutgers University
I Am a Lover of the Night I Am a Lover of the Moon: A Multi-media Performance
A multimedia performance (live reading, video, and percussion) with artist, Lynn Marie Kirby and percussionist, Tom Hemphel. The play stars two characters, Night and Moon, who in their kibitzing get lost in the swirling nebula of stories.
Cushion Works, SF 2022
The Moon Dreams of Jacqueline: String Quartet and Four Solo Singers 14'
Composer: Mark Winges; Librettists: Denise Newman and Rafael Jesús González
This piece was in honor of the exquisite music of Jacqueline du Pré, whose life was tragically cut short by multiple sclerosis. The libretto is comprised of text by Denise Newman and excerpts from Rafael Jesús González’s bilingual collection La musa lunática / The Lunatic Muse.
Players: Friction Quartet, performed on December, 2016 in San Francisco, CA
Biotic Portal at Strawberry Creek: A Public Poetry Project
From spring 2015 to fall 2016, Hazel White and I worked as poets from a makeshift studio at the UC Botanical Garden, in Berkeley, California. Leading public walks and interviewing staff and visitors, we borrowed the form of the botanical catalog and created an annotated, illustrated index of all that we captured.
This project was a chance to take poetry off the page and work with a community—to produce a substantial public poem, four videos and site-specific essays. Through it, we discovered poetry as a practice alive outside ourselves and wrestling with contemporary matter.
Biotic Portal was supported with a generous grant from the Creative Work Fund.
“Good Night Garden” is the fourth and final site video made for Biotic Portal; Hazel White and Denise Newman cover the signage to prepare the garden for the night creatures
Pandora’s Gift: A Choral Performance with an Adult and Children's Chorus
A three-way collaboration with composer Mark Winges, director Erika Shuch, and librettist Denise Newman, conducted by Robert Geary and performed by Volti adult chorus and the Piedmont children’s chorus.
This re-telling of the Greek myth of Pandora is a staged work for two choruses: treble choir and mixed choir. It traces the movement from a world without evil, to the unleashing of evil, to hope as the last and smallest thing in the box. In the second movement, all hell breaks loose when Pandora opens the box and all the calamities are unleashed on the world. Much of this section is from words written by the children from the Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir from a poetry workshop that Denise conducted.
Premiered May 2015 at Z Space in San Francisco, CA
Supported by a grant from the Gerbode and William and Flora Hewlett Foundations
Natural Discourse: Artists, Architects, Scientists and Poets in the Garden
A group show curated by Shirley Watts and Mary Anne Friel at the UC Berkeley Botanical Garden
Botanical Recognita: Signage to Facilitate a Greeting by Hazel White and Denise Newman
Working closely with UCBG horticulturists, Newman and White created 25 signs that work off the existing signage to provide viewers with information to facilitate an intimate encounter with the garden flora and site.
Water Doesn’t Drown: A Choral Work for Three Treble Choirs
Composer, Mark Winges; Librettist, Denise Newman
This three part piece was written for the 30th anniversary of the Piedmont Children's Choir, and is scored for three of their treble choirs.
Each text reflects aspects of the age group for each choir, moving from childhood to young adulthood. fog and a god has a headlong rushing and excitement, pool is to wade starts with a flowing gesture, but then becomes animated before slowing to become lost in its dreams and questions, streaming away picks up the placid dream from pool is before speeding to the “coursing, gushing, flooding stream”.
Commissioned and performed by The Piedmont Choir, conductor by Bob Geary
Performance: March, 2013 Oakland, CA.
Shui Diao Ge Tou & Song for mixed chorus, percussion and piano
Composer: Kui Dong; Librettist: Denise Newman
The text of this choral work weaves together poems by the great Song Dynasty poet Su Shi (aka Su Dongpo) and Denise Newman, spanning one thousand years, and two very different cultures and languages.
Commissioned by the Dale Warland Singers, with financial support from The Jerome Foundation, Performed by the: San Francisco Chamber Singers on June 11 and 12, 2003, Berkeley and San Francisco.
