Alan Storeygard: About The Artist

Alan Storeygard“Music is medicine for the soul” ~ Dr. Alan Storeygard

Jazz physician Alan Storeygard, is as dedicated to music as he is to medicine. A versatile pianist, composer and arranger, Storeygard harmoniously weaves jazz, blues, and classical music as the mood strikes him. Alan’s newest release, Jazz meets the Classics, reflects a lifetime of musical influence with his signature style. The album delivers a brilliant poetic synthesis of symphonious classical/jazz arrangements to honor many great classical and romantic composers, along with contemporary jazz and classical artists.

The community of Jacksonville, Arkansas, where Storeygard resides with his family, has long embraced him as a gifted musician and trusted physician. Dr. Storeygard has served his community for almost four decades as a family doctor, delivering over 1,000 babies, and working with up to five generations in one family. “As a family doctor I have been invited to be a part of many people’s lives, sometimes as a musician in their personal symphonies, sometimes as a guest conductor to see them through difficult medical issues, and other times as a composer or arranger to help plan the best medical path, which may involve many other doctors along the way,” he reveals.

Born and raised in Minneapolis Minnesota, Alan’s earliest memories of music were conceived in church and by exposure to the sounds of classical greats such as Chopin and Rachmaninoff. He recalls, “We always had a piano in the house. My two brothers and I became inspired to play the piano as we grew up listening to our father play.” His father Normann Storeygard, a chemical and mechanical engineer, was also a violinist and choir singer in the family’s local Lutheran Church.

Dr. Salvatore Moltisanti with Alan at an IBLA Concert

Throughout high school, Alan continued to actively pursue music but also developed a love for science. This led him to study towards an undergraduate degree in Chemistry at the University of Minnesota in 1973. His calling to become a Medical Doctor evolved through working summers at a nursing home where helping ill people became second nature and socially satisfying. Storeygard graduated from Mayo Medical School in Rochester, Minnesota in 1977 and completed his family practice residency program at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina in 1980. Music became nightlife during college and medical school, when Alan began playing jazz at parties and also gained the opportunity to compose and arrange jazz arrangements for his medical school annual shows. A newfound love also surfaced when he met his wife Paula, who was studying law at Duke at the time he was completing his residency. The two have devotedly anchored themselves in the community around Little Rock, Arkansas for over 35 years, raised two beautiful children, and continue to flourish in their careers.

The inspiration for Storeygard’s first recording, Church Jazz, emerged, as his family became active members of a very open-minded church in 1996. Alan was presented with a unique opportunity to create and play jazz arrangements of popular church songs for his congregation at the First United Methodist Church. His church jazz-fusion evoked standing ovations and requests for his music to be available on CD for his community. Alan’s first solo piano album, Church Jazz, was successfully released in 2001 and rapidly gained local and international recognition. In 2002, Church Jazz was a winner in Jazz piano composition at the 2002 IBLA Grand Prize International Piano & Voice Competition in Ragusa, Sicily, which prompted an invitation to perform his rendition of Amazing Grace at Carnegie Hall in 2003. The album was also nominated as a semi- finalist in the 2004 Grammy Showcase Competition in Memphis, Tennessee.

Ramsey Lewis with Alan in 2010

To date, Alan has released five albums on his own record label, Church Jazz, has been a member of the Recording Academy since 2003, and a voting member since 2010. He also formed the Alan Storeygard Trio and subsequently the Alan Storeygard Trio & Friends, with the talents of drummer Dave Rogers, bass player Brian Wolverton and his brother, vocalist Bob Storeygard. His second album, Just Havin’ Fun, was released in 2006 with Dave Rogers on drums, Joe Vick on bass, and vocalist Taylor Carlisle who sings her rendition of “Fever” to Alan’s arrangement. Alan adapted his own interpretation of Ramsey Lewis’s iconic jazz piano style to his arrangements on his third album entitled, Third Time’s a Charm, released in 2010. His fourth album, New Directions, released in 2014, contains a variety of other musical ideas and friends. The album also includes a unique vocal version of “The Lord’s Prayer,” taken from his younger brother Bob Storeygard’s album, If I Can Help Somebody.

Inspiring the classical vision for Storeygard’s latest album, Jazz meets the Classics, concert pianist Dr. Salvatore Moltisanti, creator and artistic director of the IBLA competition, has also played a significant role in Storeygard’s musical career over the last two decades. In 2011, Dr. Moltisanti invited the Alan Storeygard Trio to play his arrangement of “The Star Bangled Banner with Italian Ending” in Carnegie Hall for the finale of the New York IBLA Awards Concert. Alan Storeygard has graced the stage for many audiences in his career, including a fundraiser for the Clintons in 2015.

Jazz & Blues critic Garrick Feldman writes, “Storeygard is a genius, a renaissance man – a world- class pianist, composer, and artist. While he’s been influenced by Ramsey Lewis, Dave Brubeck, Oscar Peterson, and Bill Evans – his own unique style has emerged which rivals all of these jazz greats.”

A lifetime of dedication to music, medicine and family brings Alan five years away from his possible retirement as a medical doctor, and yet he is highly motivated to continue to perform and share his music with the world. He expresses, “It might soon be time to retire from medicine – but never from music.”

www.StoreygardMusic.com

For more information please contact: Greg Steffen, National Music Marketing, email: grsteffen@aol.com, phone: (978) 594-0328

Musically yours,

Alan Storeygard   

P.S. If any of you wonder if the image of me on my CD, “Third Time’s a Charm,” is a photograph – it is NOT. It is a portrait of me painted by one of the best portrait artists in the world, RB McGrath, who lives in Arkansas. She came to some of our concerts, said she would like to paint me, said she would paint me like Rembrandt would have – and SHE DID. If any of you would like her to paint you please contact me here or contact her through her website www.rbmcgrath.com.


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