About the crooked east
Jonathan LaPoma is a songwriter, award-winning novelist, optioned screenwriter, and poet from Buffalo, NY. In 2005, he received a BA in history and a secondary education credential from the State University of New York at Geneseo, and he traveled extensively throughout the United States and Mexico after graduating. These experiences have become the inspiration for much of his writing, which often explores themes of alienation and misery as human constructions that can be overcome through self-understanding and the acceptance of suffering.
LaPoma has written five novels, sixteen screenplays, and hundreds of songs and poems. His screenplays have won over 160 awards/honors at various international screenwriting competitions, and his black comedy script HARM FOR THE HOLIDAYS was optioned by Warren Zide along with Wexlfish Pictures (AMERICAN PIE, FINAL DESTINATION, THE BIG HIT) in July 2017.
LaPoma's novels have been recommended by Kirkus Reviews and Barnes and Noble (B&N Press Presents list), have hit the #1 Amazon Bestseller lists in the "Satire," "Urban Life," "Metaphysical," "Metaphysical & Visionary," and "Religious & Inspirational" Kindle categories (USA, Canada, and Australia), and have won awards/honors in the 2018 Eric Hoffer Book Award, the 2016 and 2017 Florida Authors and Publishers Association President's Awards, and the 2015 Stargazer Literary Prizes.
Though fiction, LaPoma's loosely-linked series of five novels roughly tell the history of The Crooked East's music. The novels follow the life of a young boy as he struggles to overcome his mental illness and better understand his need to write and make music.
The Crooked East encourages you to read these novels to get a better understanding of their music.
Oscar Díaz was born on July 15, 1988 in Mexico City. From the age of 10 he showed an interest in music thanks to a program called “Escalofríos” in which he heard a Beethoven sonata “opus 32 No. 2” for the first time.
His grandfather gave him his first keyboard at age 13, and with that he began playing music, first studying in a cultural house in Tláhuac.
At first he wanted to be a pianist, but when his grandfather died, he began to compose his first chords, and at this time, he discovered his ability to write music.
In 2005, at the age of 17, he entered the preparatory course in composition at the then National School of Music, currently FAM.
In 2012 he finished his bachelor's studies and in 2014 he took his qualification exam, obtaining “Honorable Mention.” He has made various arrangements and transcriptions on request, as well as taught piano and music classes in private schools.
In 2020 he met Jonathan LaPoma, and upon hearing his work he became very interested in joining the project “THE CROOKED EAST," which LaPoma began in 2019. Diaz and LaPoma have worked formally since the beginning of 2022, having the same vision regarding the project and working mutually on the development of the music.
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