The Broad Stage Holiday Extravaganza

Artists

Storm Large
Storm Large: musician, actor, playwright, author, awesome. She shot to national prominence as a contestant on the CBS show Rock Star: Supernova, where despite having been eliminated in the semifinals, Storm built a fan base that continues to follow her around the world.

Career highlights include performances with the San Francisco, Pittsburgh, Houston, Toronto, Baltimore, BBC, Phoenix, and Vancouver Symphonies, and her Carnegie Hall debut singing Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins with the Detroit Symphony. Storm debuted with the band Pink Martini in 2011, singing four sold-out concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center. She continues to tour internationally with the band and was featured on their album Get Happy.

Storm’s musical memoir, Crazy Enough, played to packed houses during its unprecedented 21-week sold-out run. Her memoir, Crazy Enough, was named Oprah’s Book of the Week and awarded the 2013 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction.


Simone Porter
Violinist Simone Porter has been recognized as an emerging artist of impassioned energy, interpretive integrity, and vibrant communication. In the past few years she has debuted with the New York Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic; and with a number of renowned conductors, including Stéphane Denève, Gustavo Dudamel, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Nicholas McGegan, Ludovic Morlot, and Donald Runnicles. Born in 1996, Simone made her professional solo debut at age 10 with the Seattle Symphony and her international debut with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in London at age 13. In March 2015, Simone was named a recipient of an Avery Fisher Career Grant.

Recent highlights include Mendelssohn with New Jersey Symphony, Brahms with the Pacific Symphony, Barber Concerto with the Seattle Symphony, and extensive tour throughout the US, including concerts with the Santa Rosa, Amarillo, Pasadena, Fairfax, and Midland Symphonies; the Rochester, Westchester, Orlando and Greater Bay Philharmonics; and the Sarasota Orchestra and the Northwest Sinfonietta.

Internationally, Simone has performed with the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra with Gustavo Dudamel; the Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira in Rio de Janeiro; the National Symphony Orchestra of Costa Rica; the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong; the Royal Northern Sinfonia; the Milton Keynes City Orchestra in the United Kingdom; and the Opera de Marseilles.

Simone Porter performs on a 1740 Carlo Bergonzi violin made in Cremona Italy on generous loan from The Master’s University, Santa Clarita, California.


Lucia Micarelli
Born in Queens, New York, Lucia was immersed in the arts by the age of three, diligently practicing dance, piano, and violin. It didn’t take long for Lucia to discover her passion and greatest talent was the violin, which quickly became her main focus. After moving to Hawaii at the age of five, she continued to refine her skills on the violin with teachers Kathryn Lucktenberg and Sheryl Shohet, and just a year later at the age of six, Lucia made her debut as a soloist with the Honolulu Symphony Orchestra. Soon after, she began frequently appearing on local television shows and concertizing throughout the Islands.

At age eleven, Lucia was accepted into the prestigious Juilliard School of Music’s Pre-College Division. She studied with the renowned violin pedagogue Dorothy DeLay, and also took lessons with Itzhak Perlman, Cho-Liang Lin, and Won-Bin Yim. Within a year, playing against some of the world's most gifted prodigies, she won the Pre-College Concerto Competition and settled into a routine that would combine instruction with concert appearances at the Hollywood Bowl, Lincoln Center, and other prominent international venues. She spent her summers at the Aspen Music Festival, regularly performing with the orchestra, and won the Violin Concerto Competition in 2000, resulting in a performance of the Tchaikovsky Violin Concerto with the Festival Orchestra.

At seventeen, Lucia left Juilliard to attend the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with celebrated international violinist Pinchas Zukerman. It was during this time that Lucia began to develop a growing interest in non-classical music. She started moonlighting with local jazz and rock bands in New York clubs, and by the following year, she had accepted an offer to tour with the Trans-Siberian Orchestra as a featured violinist and concertmaster.

Since then, Lucia’s profile has continued to soar. She’s been a featured soloist in two of Josh Groban’s world tours, toured extensively with Chris Botti and was featured in his “Live From Boston” PBS special (from which the duet they performed together, “Emmanuel” has received over 7 million YouTube views), and was featured in Barbra Streisand’s 2013 international tour. She also released two solo albums, “Music From A Farther Room” and “Interlude.” But 2009 saw Lucia broadening her career even further when she was cast in the starring role of “Annie” in HBO’s critically acclaimed series, “Treme”, created by David Simon and Eric Overmeyer, which ran for four seasons and won a Peabody Award as well as a Primetime Emmy Award.


Leonardo Amuedo
Leonardo Amuedo was born in Montevideo (Uruguay). He learned his first guitar chords when he was 4 years old with his brother and by the age of 17 he was already playing with several top musicians in Uruguay like, Osvaldo and Hugo Fattoruso (OPA group), Mariana Ingold, Urbano Moraes Fernando Cabrera, and Mateo.

Leonardo got a prize in Uruguay for "The best guitarist of the year" in 1984. He moved to The Netherlands in 1990 where he started playing and recording with: Laura Fygi, Jose Koning, Batida, Metropole Orchestra, Fernando Lameirinhas, Joia, Hein van de Geyn, Bacan, Ivan Lins, Dori Caymmi, Dulce Pontes, Hermeto Pascoal, Sticks & Strings, Jimmy Haslip, Michiel Borstlap, Paul van Vliet, Rosenberg Trio, Annouk, and Trijntje Oosterhuis.

In 2002 Leonardo moves to Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) and since then he has recorded and/or shared the stage with several artists and musicians like: João Bosco, Caetano Veloso, Gilson Peranzzetta, Mauro Senise, Armando Marçal (Pat Metheny group), Wagner Tiso, Alejandro Sanz, Jane Monheit, Simone, Marcio Montarroyos, Leny Andrade, Hermeto Pascoal, Oscar Castro, Neves, Andre Mehmari, Herbie Hancock, Billy Hart, Maria Schneider, Vinnie Colaiuta, Dianne Reeves, Chris Botti, Vince Mendoza, Marcus Miller, Ivan Lins, Maria Gadu, Alex Acuña (Weather Report).

From 2002 until 2010 Leonardo joined IVAN LINS' band. Leonardo got 2 Latin Grammy awards. (2005 CD of the year with "Cantando Historias"(Ivan Lins) and 2009 Best Brazilian Pop album with "Ivan Lins and Metropole Orchestra" (Ivan Lins). Leonardo is currently touring with trumpet player Chris Botti.


Impro Theatre
Based in Los Angeles, Impro Theatre is a critically acclaimed theatre company that performs completely improvised, full-length plays in the styles of the world’s greatest writers. With no pre-planning or prepared scenarios, Impro Theatre combines verbal dexterity and dynamic physicality to bring character and plot to life in an instant, making each show unique and unlike any other theatrical experience. The Los Angeles Times says, "Impro Theatre has evolved into a powerhouse improvisational company in full-length shows that are off-the-cuff and consistently hilarious. An indigenous Los Angeles treasure, the company should be seen — and reseen!" In Southern California, Impro has performed sold-out shows at The Broad Stage, The Pasadena Playhouse, South Coast Repertory, North Coast Repertory, Garry Marshall Theatre, and many more. Venues around the world include the John Anson Ford Amphitheater in Los Angeles, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Athenaeum Theatre in Chicago, Evans Auditorium at Texas State University, The Melbourne Fringe in Australia and Theatre Adyar in Paris. Impro has received multiple Ovation Recommended honors in Los Angeles and Critics’ Picks everywhere they perform. They also manage the Impro Theatre School, which teaches the company’s unique approach to improvisational theatre to students of all levels, and they present a full slate of improvised programming at the Impro Studio in Los Angeles. www.ImproTheatre.com


Hiromi
Japan has produced an impressive assemblage of jazz pianists, from Toshiko Akiyoshi and Makoto Ozone. And now, well into the change of the 21st century, the pianist/composer Hiromi is the latest in that line of amazing musicians. Ever since the 2003 release of her debut Telarc CD, Another Mind, Hiromi has electrified audiences and critics east and west, with a creative energy that encompasses and eclipses the boundaries of jazz, classical and pop parameters, taking improvisation and composition to new heights of complexity and sophistication. Her latest album, the vivid solo piano outing Spectrum, offers a dazzling evocation of the vibrant array of colors that imbue her music.

With her 2009 solo debut Place to Be, Hiromi decided to go it alone once a decade in order to capture the ways in which her experiences and personal growth had shaped her sound during the preceding years. Recorded shortly before her 40th birthday, Spectrum celebrates the maturity and depth that have enriched Hiromi’s composing and playing over the course of her 30s, years in which she’s crisscrossed the globe thrilling audiences and embarked on collaborations with some of jazz’s most inventive artists.


Lil Buck
Charles "Lil Buck" Riley is a movement artist which is known globally for a number of things. A couple are for bringing and being an ambassador of a freestyle-based dance involving intricate footwork, called Memphis Jookin.

Raised in Memphis, TN, Buck was introduced to the urban street dance style around the age of 14 yrs old. After moving up in the Jookin ranks he studied ballet for two years on scholarship. With those combined skills, he quickly made a niche for himself by adding his own style and imagination to create signature moves – which include gliding across space as if gravity doesn’t exist.

In 2011, Lil Buck performed with Yo-Yo Ma to his rendition of Camille Sain-Saens’ “The Swan.” Spike Jonze happened to be in the audience and was so blown away by the performance, he taped it on his phone and posted it on the internet. The video quickly went viral with over 3 million views on YouTube. Since then, he’s performed with Cirque du Soleil’s “Michael Jackson: One”, Benjamin Millepied, Janelle Monae and Madonna to name a few.

His dancing abilities combined with his unique style has made him a fashion icon. In 2015 he danced alongside Mikhail Baryshnikov in Rag & Bone’s Fall/Winter campaign and has appeared in ads for brands such as Gap, Volvo, Kaporal Jeans, and Diesel Jeans. He also completed his second world tour with Madonna and designed a line of shoe, shirt collection for Versace.

Throughout 2020, Lil Buck continues to defy gravity in the latest GAP ads, in the new Film Emperor and is enjoying the release of his documentary film Lil Buck “Real Swan”.

A choreographer and dancer as well as an activist, Buck is behind MOVEMENT ART IS (M.A.I.), an organization focused on using movement artistry to inspire change in the world. Lil Buck collaborated with dancer Jon Boogz and artist Alexa Meade to create "Color of Reality", a short film addressing gun violence. The film won CNN’s Great Big Story “Art as Impact” Award and Toronto Short Festival’s “Best Experimental Film” and was also nominated for World of Dance’s “Concept Video of the Year”. Buck also starred in the nature inspired short film “Honor Thy Mother” which addresses the need for humans to take better care of our planet. In present 2020 they have connected all of their short films into a stage show called “Love Heals All Wounds” that has toured in many outstanding areas with great reviews.