Michael Marcus Hearst is a composer, multi-instrumentalist, and writer. He is best known as a founding member of the eclectic musical group One Ring Zero, and for his solo albums Songs For Ice Cream Trucks, Songs For Unusual Creatures, and the children's book Unusual Creatures. Founded in Richmond, Virginia, in 1997, One Ring Zero moved to Brooklyn, New York, in 2001. The group's works are often programmatic and/or collaborative. They include As Smart As We Are, featuring lyrics by Paul Auster, Margaret Atwood, Jonathan Lethem, A.M. Homes, Neil Gaiman, Rick Moody and Dave Eggers. The book/CD The Recipe Project is a collection of recipes set to music and sung word for word in the musical style suggested by the chefs, including Mario Batali, Chris Cosentino, Andrea Reusing, David Chang, John Besh, Mark Kurlansky, Michael Symon, and Isa Chandra Moskowitz. Planets is a collection of compositions representing the solar system and beyond. Hearst says of Planets, "It had been just about 100 years since Holst had composed his song cycle The Planets. It seemed like it was time to musically revisit our solar system and come up with our own song cycle." 

December 27th, 1972 in Virginia Beach (Age 51)