User:Richardstuart.monicacrystal/sandbox

Monica-Crystal (ˈmänikə-ˈkristl) was born Monica-Crystal Arandia Montalvo, on December 5, 1982 in Santa Monica, California at the Queen of Angels Hospital. Monica-Crystal is an emerging American singer, songwriter, record producer, actress, activist, visual artist, and executive who moved back to Los Angeles, CA in the spring of 2015, to take advantage of new entertainment career opportunities and can be found frequently rehearsing with her band at the infamous Amp Rehearsal Studios in HollywoodCA. She’s currently recording her first LP with major distribution support and is the founder and front woman of the all-female instrumental band Empress Omni who performed their inaugural Los Angeles show “The Imperial Assignment Launch Party” at the famed live music venue Zanzibar in Santa Monica on Monica-Crystal’s 33rd birthday and the buzz has been mounting ever since. Monica-Crystal is a former foster child and draws much of her creative inspiration from the tribulations she overcame as a child and as an adolescent. She looks forward to touring the world with her band Empress Omni, embarking on a movementdriven by music with a powerful message. For the past six years, Monica-Crystal has worked as a performing artist and executive for the Brave New World Entertainment Company, LLC. Early Life First-born child of three daughters to Ernesto Montalvo and second-born to Elizabeth Jocqua Arandia who had a daughter from a previous partner, Monica-Crystal was abruptly separated from her father around the age of four due to a tumultuous and sometimes violent relationship. Monica-Crystal was secretly relocated along with her siblings from San Antonio, TX to Clark Air Force Base in the Philippines (her mother’s home country) immediately following her mother’s second marriage to an American military officer who legally adopted the girls yet was sexually abusive to the children behind closed doors. Ernesto Montalvo would also remarry and father two more children with his second wife. It would be twenty-two years before Monica-Crystal would reunite with her biological father again and she missed him dearly, yet kept busy by directing her focus toward her passion for the creative arts. Having learned to read at age three, Monica-Crystal wrote her first song at the age of five while still living in the Philippines and spent most of her alone time reading, writing, painting, drawing, and staging plays among her friends and siblings. Only days before the volcanic eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1991 after living just two years overseas, her family was evacuated back to the United States where they’d live in Cupertino, CA for another couple years. Monica-Crystal now had another baby brother and it wasn’t long before the bunch would again relocate-- this time to Austin, TX for a four-year time period. Monica-Crystal was now twelve years old and quietly, very excited to be living back in Texas with high hopes of reuniting with her biological father and that side of her American/Spanish family again. She would ask her mother again and again to set up a reunion but inevitably she would be relocated before herquinceañera, which was the date she’d been promised to be reunited with him. With both biological parents raised in Catholic households, Monica-Crystal was baptized Catholic as a baby and attending mass was a frequent occurrence in her childhood. She even experienced the right of passage of her First Communion at age twelve while in her mother’s care but as an adolescent she began to question the true intentions and beliefs of the chronically abusive yet, church-going adults closest to her and her siblings. She soon after began experimenting with cigarettes, marijuana and alcohol but this wouldn’t keep her interest long. Her interest in a deeper spirituality began to rapidly develop and she developed many pieces of writing and artwork and received acclaim for her work while at school. At 15 years old, Monica-Crystal kept busy as a role model student, youth performer at Studio East Performing Arts Guild in Kirkland, WA, and she was the Assembled Student Body President of her school and was a dedicated martial arts student at the Jungyae Moosul Martial Arts Academy in Woodinville, WA where she now lived. Her busy schedule kept her distracted from the turmoil in the home. In the summer of 1998, after a martial arts class Monica-Crystal was picked up by Elizabeth who notified Monica-Crystal that her former step-father had been arrested by the FBI at Boeing in Renton, WA. Monica-Crystal believed her prayers had been answered finally, she and her siblings would be safe. But, her former stepfather would be bailed out of jail, and ultimately Monica-Crystal would run away becoming the only child at that time to testify to the abuse that had taken place in the home for ten years. She was shortly transferred into the foster care system never to live with her siblings again and became a frequent runaway. Though she appreciated the kindness, patience and love her last foster guardian Loreita Richards showed her, the thought of being on her own so soon was too much to bare and Monica-Crystal would again run away from the foster home just months shy of aging-out of the system in 2001, she’d move into an apartment with her boyfriend not far away and would come to regret never seeing Loreita again. Early Career Prior to being transferred into foster care from the city of Woodinville where she lived and attended Junior High School, Monica-Crystal was introduced to a DJ at a school function who went by the name of Super Dave. Helping to plan the Timbercrest Middle School dance was one of the activities she volunteered to help coordinate and it was there Super Dave notified her that he also worked as a talent manager. Monica-Crystal had just begun taking vocal lessons from Larry Bridges where she began writing and co-producing her own original music in a professional setting before her abrupt transfer into foster care. After a grueling bout with depression, suicidal attempts, and several admissions to the Overlake Medical Center Monica-Crystal struggled to keep up with the recording of her original music. With the support of her best friend, she would travel from Juanita to Puyallup on a near weekly basis to record her original music and practice her stage performance. With all of the adjustments taking place in her life, it would be about a year before she would reach out to Super Dave. While she still lived in foster care, he became Monica-Crystal’s earliest music business representative and would introduce Monica-Crystal to composer/studio engineer Victor Hoguin, who owned V.H. Productions in Puyallup, WA. Monica-Crystal credits the self-expressive arts for her triumph through a grim time in her life. At 17, Monica-Crystal was still living in foster care, heavily involved in counseling and in danger of being “Becca-Billed”. However, her outstanding academic record from the previous year enabled Monica-Crystal to enroll in a class only a small percentage of students were eligible for. One subject in particular kept her coming back, and with her high academic record in 1999, she joined the only high school class in the state of Washington involved in a college level biotechnology class. She was even selected as one of 6 students to attend the Bio Convention in 1999 where she and her classmates would perform the extraction of salmon DNA through a technique called spooling. The next year, she would later enroll at Shoreline Community College to pursue a degree in biotechnology but her younger siblings had just recently moved out of state to Oregon with their mother and again Monica-Crystal fell into a deep depression. She struggled in her personal relationship and felt the healthiest option would be for her to move on her own to Los Angeles to pursue her entertainment career in her hometown. A friend suggested a road trip to L.A. and Monica-Crystal was happy to oblige. Within the first few days of being in Los Angeles Monica-Crystal was approached by an A&R at Dublin’s on the Sunset Strip. The A&R would introduce the blissful, bright-eyed songstress to a man known as Essex. Essex would become a long-time friend and father figure to Monica-Crystal who was also present during her inaugural performance in Santa Monica in 2015.

References:

eMinor Incorporated. 2016. ReverbNation. Monica-Crystal. About. Bio. Retrieved March 18, 2016 from: https://www.reverbnation.com/monicacrystal

Facebook.com. 2016. Monica-Crystal’s Fan Page. Monica-Crystal & Empress Omni. About. Bio. Retrieved March 18, 2016 from: https://www.facebook.com/MonicaCrystalsFanPage/

Facebook.com. 2016. The Gifted Stars Of Venus Fund. About. Bio. Retrieved March 18, 2016 from: https://www.facebook.com/TheGiftedStarsOfVenusFund/

IndieGogo, Inc. 2016. The Imperial Assignment Launch Party 2015. Santa Monica, US. Music. Story. Retrieved March 18, 2016 from: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-imperial-assignment-launch-party-2015#/

Wix. Monica-Crystal. 2015. The Imperial Assignment Launch Party. Monica-Crystal & Empress Omni. Retrieved March 18, 2016 from: http://monica-crystal.wix.com/monica-crystal