San Francisco Bay Area composer and synthesist Pauline Anna Strom has died at age 74. No information regarding her cause of death has been disclosed at the time of writing.
Matt Werth of RVNG Intl. broke the news in a post to the NYC record label’s website. He had been working with Strom on the release of her first album in more than 30 years, and a lapse in their communication was the first sign that something was wrong. Strom underwent a surgery to treat a broken hip in 2019, but was known to be recovering.
“It did not clock when Paula failed to return a voicemail I left this past Friday to coordinate another interview around her forthcoming album,” wrote Werth. “We had been in touch so frequently over the past several months with this new music on the horizon that I’d clearly taken her availability for granted.”
Strom – who lived an “intentionally hermetic” lifestyle, according to Werth – was perhaps best known for her 1982 album Trans-Millenia Consort. She had more or less quit music after a number of subsequent self-released efforts and didn’t return to it until RVNG Intl. re-released much of it as an album titled Trans-Millenia Music.
RVNG Intl. still plans to move forward with the release of Strom’s posthumous album in February 2021.
