Lori Singer is one of those rare talents that encompasses everything all at once. She's a musician, actress and model. Being the daughter of Jacques Singer, a famous Symphony conductor, and Leslie Singer, a concert pianist, Lori was born into a performing family. She started playing the cello at a very young age, and soon was practicing 12 hours a day. It turned out that Lori was a prodigy, and at age 12 she made her debut as a soloist with the Oregon Symphony performing the Lalo Concerto. When Lori was 14, she was offered a scholarship to the prestigious Juilliard Performing Arts School where she would later become the 1st seat cellist with the Juilliard Symphony. While there, Lori studied under the masterful concert cellist Leonard Rose. In 1980, Lori would go on to win the Bergen Philharmonic Competition for Cello.

Pictured on the left is Lori's father, Jacques Singer (at age 17). I was able to find this through a little personal research. The inscription that came with the picture reads: "Common Room of the Curtis Institute of Music, ca 1927. From left to right: Judith Poska, Stokowski, and Jacques Singer." This came from the University of Pennsylvania website. Jacques Singer was the conductor for the "Dallas Symphony Orchestra" from 1937 until 1942, at which time Mr. Singer, along with a third of the Orchestra's personnel, entered into military service. After serving in the military, Jacques took over the "Vancouver Symphony Orchestra" from 1947 until 1952, and later directed the "Oregon Symphony" from 1962 until 1972. I've also read that Mr. Singer was the conductor of the "Corpus Christi Symphony Orchestra", but I'm not sure of the exact dates for that yet. I'm fairly certain that the order would be #1 Dallas, #2 Vancouver, #3 Corpus Christi, and #4 Oregon. Sadly, Mr. Singer died in August of 1980 in New York City at the age of 70.

One of Lori's brothers is non other than the "Beastmaster" himself, Marc Singer. Inspired by her brothers success in hollywood, Lori began taking acting lessons at age 17. Utilizing both her musical talent and acting abilities, Lori was cast in the now cult classic TV series, "Fame." During her stint on "Fame", Lori was also able to show off her dancing and singing abilities. In fact, she beat out Madonna for the part. After "Fame", Lori starred in the movie "Footloose", which is also considered to be a cult classic.

Besides Marc, Lori has an older brother named Claude, who's a writer, and a twin brother named Gregory (Photo borrowed from Gregory's website which has since gone offline). Gregory is a concert violinist who also graduated from Juilliard like Lori. Gregory has played violin for a number of major orchestras, including the "American Symphony" and "The Brooklyn Philharmonic." Gregory has also performed as part of the orchestra for a number of Broadway musicals, including "Phantom of the Opera" and "The King and I" and has played back up on the live tours and studio recordings of many popular groups and singers including Emerson Lake and Palmer, Marvin Gaye, Roberta Flack and Judy Collins, among others. Something that I recently found out, is that Lori's first cousin is writer and director Bryan Singer. Bryan directed "The Usual Suspects", "Apt Pupil", and wrote and directed the popular movies "X-Men" and "X2: X-Men United."

Lori has worked with a number of well-known directors, including Herbert Ross who directed Lori in "Footloose" in 1984, Robert Altman whose credits include "Nashville" 1975, "The Player" 1992, and of course "Short Cuts" in 1993 where Lori played a troubled cellist named Zoe Trainer. She has also worked with Atom Egoyan whose credits include "The Sweet Hereafter" 1997, "Where the Truth Lies" 2005, and "Bach Cello Suite #4: Sarabande" in 1997. Most recently, Lori played herself in "When Will I Be Loved", directed by James Toback, and worked with Arizona filmmakers Brian and Duane Ronalds in "Little Victim." Of all the directors Lori has worked with, she states that Robert Altman was her favorite.

In 1995, Lori starred in her very own series, "VR5." V.R. stands for Virtual Reality, and 5 being the 5th level (Level 1 is a photograph, level 2 is like a video game, etc.). She became one of only a handful of women to carry her own primetime television series. Lori played the part of Sydney Bloom, originally written for a male, a telephone company worker by day, and a computer geek by night. Unfortunatly the series only ran for 13 episodes, although it was a favorite of mine. This is one series I hope the SciFi Channel brings back, and it is another example of the short sightedness of television executives. Also, in that same year, Lori was voted one of the "Most Beautiful People" by People Magazine. An understatement in my opinion.

After "VR5", Lori starred in one more short film entitled, "Bach Cello Suite #4: Sarabande", which was filmed in 1997. The basis behind this film was more the music of Bach, and more specifically it was #4 of Bach's 6 suites written for the Cello. The primary musician in this film is Yo-yo Ma, who's considered to be the worlds greatest living Cellist. Lori was able to show off her musical talent in this film, and she even played a duet with Yo-yo Ma. Believe me when I say, Lori is AWESOME on the Cello!! To my knowledge, Lori hasn't put out a musical CD, although I do know that during the time of "VR5", she was in talks to do so. She did, however, contribute her musical talent on the soundtrack to "Short Cuts." Lori plays four of the songs that are on the CD, one of them being a solo piece. There was also a CD put out for her television series "VR5", although Lori doesn't play any of the music on it.

In 2004, Lori made a cameo appearance in the Neve Campbell movie, "When Will I Be Loved." Hopefully this is a sign that Lori will start making movies once again. For now though, Lori makes the occasional public appearance at movie premiers and charity benefits. I will, however, try to keep up with the latest news and post it in my "News" section.