And aren't Dusdin's photographs beautiful? This background picture he calls Noxious Weeds. I wonder what they would taste like sprinkled over a sea-palm salad?Speaking in the third person now, as is meet and right for a True Artist's Biography (on a page of myspace.com):Storm Garner was born on June 20th, 1983 in Washington DC, grew up as a Suzuki-violinist in DC and in Paris, with frequent stops in the Anza-Borrego desert (CA) and Fiano Romano, Italy and Berlin and Kraków and New York City...not that geography has much to do with her music-making, which is why you're reading this...let's see...oh yes it does, actually: a formative experience of hers, for example: at age 14, playing Bach's Second Partita for court-musicians in the Hunza region of Pakistan who had never before been exposed to Western music, she first understood the emotional impact she could have on others (positive, we hope, ultimately) without using any common language or even artistic references. Powerful realization, yes. Storm always loved playing the violin, and making people laugh and cry, and hypnotizing herself with Hemi-Sync-ish microtones for hours on end, but she was not too keen on The Standard Soloist Repertoire--pompous concerti and mind-numbing Paganini virtuosischeiss--and thus began her deviation from New England Conservatory/Masterclass-goody-two-shoes/Competition contestant to chamber music (lots of Shostakovich, Prokofiev, friends' compositions, Brahms, Franck) then back to the ole' faves, Bach's infinity-Partitas (Storm will play the Ciaccone every day for the rest of her life and each day she will discover something new in it). In hermitage (given some peace and quiet) she took longer and longer each day "warming up" for her Bach practice, and those "warm ups" eventually got recorded and/or notated. Some day she might call them "compositions". She never played them for anyone, however, until she found herself unexpectedly at an audition for the role of Death in a La Mama, ETC production of "Death and the Plouhman" in NYC. After reading a rather dense passage from the script for the jet-lagged director, she whipped out Zelinda (her old Czech violin) and improvised/rehashed some "warm-up themes" that seemed fitting for the play in question, mostly just to fill the time and space and cool everyone's nerves. In five minutes, she not only got the part (as Death) but also the job of composing the music for the play. Pleased as punch to be getting paid for something she loved to do, she put her all into that play, and landed two more music composition/improvisation jobs at LaMama as a result. She had to write songs for "Death.." Storm had never before written a song. She had written poetry, lots of it, and stories, and rambling third-person bios, as well as music, but she had not yet thunk to put the two together. Duh. So she did. It felt good. She did it again. And again. And again. Then she met a very tall thin man called Jonathan Vincent at a Milton Babbit concert at the Cutting Room (May 1st 2006) and it became apparent that this was a musical match made in heaven. Jonathan accompanied many of Storm's songs on the piano and on the accordion, but also is responsible for her finally coming out of the closet with her violin/voice improvisations and getting her to play gigs with other improvisers and avantgarderies,,,...which is GOOD. And they played Mozart together, and Fauré. No kidding. Oh and they also acted in plays and odd indie films and ate raw food together. It was nice. Now Storm's in NYC, studying at Columbia (philosophy and evolutionary biology of the human species and MAYBE music...) and acting in plays and films, and writing more music, this time for people who may actually want to perform it in recitals! How exciting.The current plan with her songs is to combine them with Jonathan Vincent's songs--not combine the songs, literally (well maybe, actually...), but to have a "band" together in which he would write and sing some songs and she would write and sing some songs and they could both adapt/reinstrumentalize each other's songs ad infinitum and hopefully lots of other musicians will come along for the ride. They will be called "The Wilder Worldwide" and will inaugurate (alongside Obama!!!!) in January in Washington DC and then in New York City. Please everyone pray that Jonathan gets accepted into a composition graduate program in NYC!!!More of Storm's songs: http://www.myspace.com/stormylaughter
Jonathan's: see links in "top friends" somewhere between Prokofiev and Edward Gorey.
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