My Brightest Diamond is a chamber pop band led by singer-songwriter Shara Worden, which was formed in New York City, NY, USA (2006).
Worden is the granddaughter of an Epiphone-playing traveling evangelist; her father was a National Accordion Champion and her mother a classical organist. Having a family of wanderers who migrated across the U.S. every few years, the landscape and the musical influences were constantly changing: Spanish tangos, Sunday morning gospel, classical and jazz were the accompaniment to her home life. Her first song was recorded when she was three years old, and by the age of eight she was studying piano and performing in community musical productions.
As a teenager in Michigan, Shara honed her musical prowess singing along to Whitney Houston music videos and Mariah Carey albums. When pop music wasn’t enough, she enrolled in the music program at the University of North Texas, immersing herself in the songs of Henry Purcell and Claude Debussy. After college, she moved to New York City and fell in love with its cold winters and busy streets. She continued to study opera on the Upper West Side during the day, but at night she frequented downtown clubs such as Tonic, Knitting Factory, and The Living Room, catching performances by Antony and the Johnsons, Nina Nastasia, and Rebecca Moore. She began to spend less time sight-reading Mozart and more time de-tuning her Gibson electric guitar to play her own newly-written songs. Coaxed out of recital halls and onto the small stages of bars and clubs, Shara assembled a coterie of musicians to accompany her with bass and drums, music boxes, wine glasses, and wind chimes.
