ONLY DREAMS
Saturday, June 1
8 P.M.- 9:20 P.M.
An evocative evening of songs, stories, and poems by Lesley Stoller.
About Lesley:
As a teen, performing 60s pop in kid-bands across Long Island, NY, Mr. Stoller began to write songs. At twenty, he traveled around Europe and soon embraced songwriting as a core means of artistic expression. Upon returning to the USA, he founded The Wizard’s Hound, an alternative folk-rock band playing in NYC, Upstate New York, and Canada.
During this time he also began a family and worked at numerous odd jobs.
Lesley entered Queens College where he began to read and write music and study Psychology. After receiving his Masters in Psychology from The New School for Social Research, he began a 30 year career teaching music to emotionally handicapped students at Queens Children’s Psychiatric Center @Creedmoor Hospital, while teaching piano and guitar privately.
Gaining admission into the prestigious Lehman Engel BMI Musical Theater Workshop, Stoller studied with Broadway composers and lyricists, and created numerous musical works for the stage including his full-length psychoanalytic romance, The Viennese Table, and a musical adaptation for stage of Albert Brooks’s film, Defending Your Life.
He then served as composer-in-residence with The Night Kitchen Radio Theater, founded by Maurice Sendak and Arthur Yorinks. His collaboration with Mr. Yorinks continued with their co-production of the celebrated children’s album, Happy Bees, on TNK Records.
After retiring from teaching, Lesley trained and was certified at the Center for Modern Psychoanalytic Studies,and now practices as a licensed psychoanalyst in NYC and Long Island, while making steady progress on his ongoing memoir, Only Dreams.
Recently, Mr. Stoller collaborated with writer/painter Ginger Balizer-Hendler on the adaptation of her book, The Adventures of Gingerella, into a full-length musical. Joined by composer/choral director, Kelly Schmidt, they developed the show into a sold-out three-week-run at the Glenwood Life Center (also performed at the opening reception for Ms. Balizer-Hendler’s art show at The Sea Cliff Arts Council).
Returning to folk-rock, Lesley has joined his brother, guitarist, Brad Stoller, to form The Stoller Band, produce their studio album, Stationary Sun on Loving Mind Records, and perform throughout NYC and Long Island.
Perpetually attuned to his early passions, Lesley makes time to teach and write – and perform solo and acoustic. He is excited to combine many of his creative interests into the Sea Cliff Arts Council performance ofONLY DREAMS