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This page is for those who'd like to know more about the person behind the music.

For my professional information, see the rest of the site.

I had an unusually free childhood (lived in various group households, communes, and other intentional communities; traveled around the U.S., living in a Volkswagen bus; didn't go to elementary school). I feel very lucky to have grown up with so much freedom and so much support for self-teaching and intellectual curiosity. 

I'm currently based in Philadelphia, after a decade in NYC. I maintain ties with NYC, sometimes commuting there for concerts and rehearsals, but Philadelphia is my home city. I'm excited to be connecting with Philly musicians. I had a great performance by Philmore Ensemble and I'm working on meeting lots of other area musicians.

[photo of Kala Pierson's son] I moved here with my family, which includes me, my husband, my wife, and our young son whom we've raised since his birth as three equal parents. It's a relatively unusual family shape, but it's less unusual than you might think, because few three-parent families have the luxury of being as open about their lives as we can be. (And because TV and media attention to multiple-partner marriages tends to focus on religious groups in which wives are more like possessions for a husband to collect — as opposed to the much more common reality of equal/healthy relationships that are simply non-monogamous.) Our approach to honest non-monogamy is usually called polyamory.

I want to help make our culture safer for every kind of family. One small step toward that ideal is for my family to be straightforward about who we are, dissolving misconceptions along the way. Another step is for me to focus, in some of my work, on queer and polyamorous themes and history. I'm doing this particularly in my long-term project Illuminated, in an opera I'm starting to research for development starting in 2013, and in occasional smaller-scale pieces.

Aside from music and activism-via-music, I'm interested in many creative, outdoors, and techy pursuits. I've done writing of many kinds (creative, scholarly, commercial, and more). During my early years in NYC, I was AOL Local's classical music writer and I contributed to various city guides, Gothamist, and even Shecky's Bar and Lounge Guide (which will surprise anyone who knows my lack of nightlife expertise :)). I love doing abstract and nature photography. I taught myself lots of tech stuff and I ended up working on Wall Street, writing web code, as another early-years job. (My last traditional job was in 2003-2005, teaching as part-time adjunct faculty at Fordham University's Lincoln Center campus.)

I need green and trees around me, and I love walking, camping, and swimming in lakes and rivers. I feel well aligned with Buddhism and with (skeptical) Paganism, although I'm not a formal practitioner of either. I'm intensely focused and peaceful, and I've done some formal study of mindfulness. I love exploring focus and mindfulness as part of creative practice.