My Brightest Diamond Discography (2006 - 2014)

Shara Worden is the lead singer and songwriter for My Brightest Diamond. As a composer she is most recognized for her choral compositions and the baroque chamber opera "You Us We All". New music composers Sarah Kirkland Snider, David Lang, Steve Mackey and Bryce Dessner have composed pieces for Worden's voice. She has recorded as a guest vocalist with David Byrne, Laurie Anderson, Sufjan Stevens, Jedi Mind Tricks, The Blind Boys of Alabama and Stateless as well as extensive collaborations with visual artists Matthew Ritchie and Matthew Barney. She was formerly the frontwoman of AwRY.
Worden was born in El Dorado, Arkansas. Her father was an accordion player and choir director and her mother was an organist for their Pentecostal church. Worden's uncle Donald Ryan, a classical and jazz pianist and arranger, taught her piano lessons as a child. Worden's family moved to many different states when she was a child, including significant time in Sapulpa, Oklahoma and Ypsilanti, Michigan. [1]

Worden graduated from the University of North Texas with a BA for vocal performance.[2] After university, she lived in Moscow, Russia, for a year where she studied Russian and wrote songs, producing a self-released, limited edition EP, Session I. She moved to New York City where she continued to study opera with Josephine Mongiardo. In 2009 Worden moved to Detroit, Michigan.
In 2001, Worden self-released two albums in collaboration with guitarist Shane Yarbrough under the moniker Awry, The Orange Album and Quiet B Sides. A short tour followed the release of the albums, after which the band dissolved. In 2002 and 2003 Worden wrote music for Adam Rapp's play Trueblinka (directed by Simon Hammerstein) and subsequently for Hammerstein's production of Jean-Paul Sartre's Men Without Shadows (Morts sans sépulture). She began studying composition with Padma Newsome during this time. Then in 2004 she began touring in Sufjan Stevens' band for the tours supporting his album "Michigan". In 2006, she released the album "Bring Me The Workhorse" on Asthmatic Kitty Records under the moniker My Brightest Diamond and was nominated for Female Artist of the Year in the PLUG Independent Music Awards. The My Brightest Diamond albums "A Thousand Shark's Teeth" (2008), "All Things Will Unwind" (2011), and "This Is My Hand" (2014) were also released on Asthmatic Kitty Records. Worden became a Kresge performing arts fellow in 2012.

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