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Richard von Sturmer (born 1957) is an artist, poet, playwright, film-maker, and musician from New Zealand.[1][2][3] He was born in Devonport, North Auckland.[4]
His poetry and prose has appeared in journals such as The New Zealand Listener, brief, Landfall, Sport, and Zen Bow.[5]
In music, von Sturmer fronted New Zealand punk/art band The Plague, continued with The Humanimals,[6] Avant Garage,[4] and wrote the lyrics for Blam Blam Blam's anti-Robert Muldoon song "There Is No Depression In New Zealand",[2][7][8] which has been described as a 'classic alternative national anthem.'[9] The Plague are particularly known for their 1979 performance at the Nambassa festival, where four members (including von Sturmer) appeared naked apart from body paint.[10]
Richard von Sturmer is a Zen Buddhist, who gave up eating meat when he was 16.[2] He studied for ten years at the Rochester Zen Center in New York.[8]
Von Sturmer is married to Sensei Amala Wrightson (previously Charlotte Wrightson),[11] with whom he co-founded the Auckland Zen Centre.[2][12]
From 2014, von Sturmer has worked with film-maker Gabriel White as the duo The Floral Clocks, with von Sturmer writing lyrics which White set to music.[13] These songs were released as an album Desert Fire, mostly performed by White alone.[14] A second album, A Beautiful Shade of Blue was released in 2017, and their third Gas Giant was released in 2019.[15]
