Checking us out

For our friends in Europe who have now seen Mozartballs and have come to check me out, I have decided to post an entry with a little information about me that might be of interest to you. I do want to point out that I do have a profile page, so if you want further information, you can click where it says "My Profile", just to the left of this entry. My professional website as well as my website on the life of Anna "Nancy" Storace might also be of interest to you.

I am, of course, the partner of Steph Waller, who seems to be the person generating the most interest, (as well as controversy), in the film. Steph and I met on line in May of 1999 when I discovered her online portrayal of Mozart. For several weeks we carried on an online relationship with one another as "Mozart and Nettl", and we instantaneously developed a very close relationship in that capacity. After about two months, however, I learned that Mozart's portrayer was not a man, but a woman. That proved to be a bit unsettling for me at first, but after I had a few hours to think on it, and come to terms with it, I realized that nothing had changed, and that this person was still the same person I had come to know and love from the very beginning.

When I met Steph online I was married to a Southern Baptist minister and had been for 17 years. However, my marriage was not a very happy one and was in serious trouble long before I met Steph. In addition to my troubled marriage, I was having serious questions and doubts over my long-held religious and spiritual beliefs. I felt hemmed-in and caged by the narrowness of the Christian doctrines with which I had been raised, and from which I had not strayed my entire life. It was in my encounter with Steph and the ensuing relationship that it all began to change.

Steph and I met face-to-face for the first time in October of 1999, when I flew to Ventura, California to sing in an 18th Century Soiree held in my honor in her home. While I was there, I realized that my life was about to change and that there was little or nothing that I could do to stop it. The short of it is that my marriage ended in divorce in the spring of 2000, and by August of that same year, Steph was living with me in Stillwater, Oklahoma, the city where I grew up, and where I was working on my Master of Music in vocal performance and pedagogy at Oklahoma State University. In the following year, on May 25, 2001, Steph and I were joined in Holy Union at the College Hill Presbyterian Church, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is a More Light Church, meaning it includes members of the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered communities.

Steph and I currently reside in Stillwater along with her son, Joel, and my three teen-aged children, Lauren, Heather, and Nathan. Steph is a composer, free-lance writer/author, and Mozart historian, and works from our home. I am a mezzo-soprano and currently sing with the Stillwater Chamber Singers, as well as teach voice and piano. We have hopes to relocate to Vienna sometime in 2008.