Annie Booth is a versatile and award-winning composer, arranger, and jazz pianist. She has received international recognition for her work as a composer/arranger with awards and grants from the likes of Chamber Music America, ASCAP, Downbeat Magazine, and many more.
Annie leads several bands including the Annie Booth Trio, the Annie Booth Sextet, and the 18-piece Annie Booth Big Band. Recent notable performances include the 2023 Telluride Jazz Festival Main Stage (Annie Booth Sextet), the 2023 Five Points Jazz Festival Main Stage (Annie Booth Big Band), and a 17-show residency at Dazzle Jazz Club (Annie Booth Trio, 2023).
Her writing spans from small group jazz to big band and chamber works and she has been commissioned by the likes of Reno Jazz Festival, the University of Denver, the University of Idaho, and many others. Annie has released six albums as a bandleader and has appeared on more than a dozen as a side-musician. Flowers Of Evil, her latest album (released Oct 13, 2023) is an otherworldly song cycle of original music set to the beautifully dark poetry of 19th century French poet, Charles Baudelaire, and the 1864 collection of the same name. Flowers Of Evil features an 11-piece ensemble and lives between the boundaries of jazz, chamber music, and art song, blending poetry with improvisation, emotion with sound. Masterfully sung both in French and English by renowned soprano Kathryn Radakovich, Annie Booth brings the complex world of Charles Baudelaire's 19th century Paris to modern times through her fresh and compelling music.
Additionally, Annie Booth is a respected jazz educator and is currently on faculty at the Jazz and Commercial Music Program at the University of Denver’s Lamont School of Music. She has appeared as a guest artist-educator/conductor at institutions such as the University of North Texas, the Reno Jazz Festival, the UNC/Greeley Jazz Festival, the Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, Seattle JazzEd, and many more. In 2023, she was the guest conductor for the South Dakota All-State Jazz Band. For many years, she has worked with students in the Colorado Conservatory for the Jazz Arts (CCJA) directing combos, teaching at summer camps, and leading the SheBop Young Women in Jazz Workshop, which she developed and about which she wrote her pedagogy-focused master’s thesis. Booth holds Bachelors and Masters degrees from the Thompson Jazz Studies Program at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
In 2023, she and fellow composer/arranger Alan Baylock launched Brava Jazz Publishing, the only outlet of its kind that supports and champions women composers and arrangers in jazz by creating a platform for their music to be widely distributed and published.