Storm Large
About this Artist
Storm Large: musician, actor, playwright, author, awesome. She shot to national prominence in 2006 as a finalist on the CBS show Rock Star: Supernova, where despite having been eliminated in the week before the finale, Storm built a fan base that follows her around the world to this day.
Storm spent the ’90s singing in clubs throughout San Francisco. Tired of the club scene, she moved to Portland to pursue a new career as a chef, but a last-minute cancellation in 2002 at the Portland club Dante’s turned into a standing Wednesday-night engagement for Storm and her new band, The Balls. It wasn’t long before Storm had a cult-like following in Portland and a renewed singing career that was about to be launched onto the international stage.
Storm made her debut with the band Pink Martini in April 2011, singing four sold-out concerts with the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. She continues to perform with the band, touring nationally and internationally, and she was featured on their CD, Get Happy. Storm has also sung with Grammy winner k.d. lang, pianist Kirill Gerstein, punk rocker John Doe, singer-songwriter Rufus Wainwright, and Rock & Roll Hall of Famer George Clinton.
She debuted with the Oregon Symphony in 2010 and has returned for sold-out performances each year thereafter. Storm made her Carnegie Hall debut in May 2013, singing Weill’s Seven Deadly Sins with the Detroit Symphony as part of the Spring for Music festival. The New York Times called her “sensational,” and the classical music world instantly had a new star.
In 2007, Large took a career departure and starred in Portland Center Stage’s production of Cabaret with Wade McCollum. The show was a smash hit, earning her glowing reviews. Her next endeavor, the autobiographical musical memoir Crazy Enough, played to packed houses in 2009 during its unprecedented 21-week sold-out run in Portland. Storm went on to perform a cabaret version of the show to critical acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Adelaide Festival in Australia, and Joe’s Pub in New York. Her memoir, Crazy Enough, was released by Simon and Schuster in 2012, named Oprah’s Book of the Week, and awarded the 2013 Oregon Book Award for Creative Nonfiction.
Storm is featured in Rid of Me, a film by Portlander James Westby, starring Katie O’Grady and Theresa Russell. In November and December of 2010, she starred at the Mark Taper Forum with Katey Sagal and Michael McKean in Jerry Zak’s production of Harps and Angels, a musical featuring the work of Randy Newman.
In the 2013/14 season, Storm and her band, Le Bonheur performed in many new cities around the country, including Las Vegas, Boston, Minneapolis in an evening called “Taken by Storm.” In June 2014, she appeared at the Ojai Festival with the exciting new orchestra, The Knights and the vocal ensemble Hudson Shad. Later in the summer, she debuted at the Grant Park Music Festival in Chicago.
In the Fall of 2014, Storm & Le Bonheur released a record designed to capture their sublime and subversive interpretations of the American Songbook. Entitled simply, Le Bonheur and released on Pink Martini’s Heinz Records, the recording is a collection of tortured and titillating love songs: beautiful, familiar, yet twisted…much like the lady herself. Most recently, Storm was asked by NBC to participate in the 2021 season of America’s Got Talent, a wild ride that brought her incredible voice and presence into homes across America. Grateful for the exposure, Storm is happy to be back on stage with her band and joining Pink Martini on occasion.