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| About Susan |
| SUSAN TRAVERS STERN yours for a song (Yes, she can be bought) "Now is a good time to try something new." Would a fortune cookie lie? |
| Suspected of having emerged from the womb in full voice, Susan has never stopped singing. Born in Los Angeles, she is a rare breed: a native Californian. Susan was weaned on classical music (Brahms and Beethoven being her particular faves), as well as jazz greats Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee -- the great standards were her first passion. In the Santa Monica house where Susan spent most of her pre-college years, three corners of an otherwise "formal" living room were taken up with a piano, a vibraharp and a drum set; so making music was a regular pastime (as long as it wasn't the rock 'n’ roll that her parents despised). Freed from parental constraints when she left the nest for college in Berkeley, Susan expanded her musical horizons to embrace the bounty of rock 'n' roll, folk and country tunes that filled the radio waves. Music informed everything. After her return to Los Angeles, Susan hooked up with Sing! Sing! Sing! and for five years she participated as a vocalist in that group's monthly appearances at the Jazz Bakery and as a featured singer and soloist for the quartet, Vocal Affair. Vocal Affair performed at other venues in the Los Angeles and Palm Springs area, but one of their most gratifying experiences was the regular monthly pro bono appearance for OPICA, a day-care center for adults with Alzheimer's disease. The power of music was never more evident, as demonstrated by its ability to reach through the disease and spark a memory in a mind that seemed otherwise inaccessible. A particularly memorable OPICA moment came when one of the older women in the audience began singing along toward the end of the show. A nurse's aid rushed up afterwards to exclaim, "But – she hasn't spoken or related to us in three days! She was catatonic until she heard your music! I'm calling her daughter!" For Susan, though, the absolute best part of the Jazz Bakery years was finding Valerie and Kerry, with whom she shares a love of music in its many forms, which has evolved into the endlessly creative, slightly irreverent and undeniably entertaining RainPace. Further enhanced by the addition of "the Mikes" (Hunter and Salas), RainPace is now Susan's happy musical home. Rock on! |
| "Be brave enough to live creatively. The creative is the place where no one else has ever been... You can't get there by bus, only by hard work, risking and by not quite knowing what you're doing." ~ Alan Alda "I am adept at not knowing what I am doing, and working hard to do it." ~ Susan Stern |
| RainPace is... |
| Kerry Phillips |
| Valerie Tullous |
| Susan Stern |
| Mike Salas |
| Mikey Hunter |
| (Click photos for bios) |
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