Julia Cumming

Julia Rachel Cumming (born January 16, 1996) is an American singer-songwriter who is the frontwoman and bass player of the Brooklyn-based band Sunflower Bean. Cumming models occasionally, and has modeled for several well known designers and has appeared in global campaigns for H&M and Diesel. Cumming is also a political activist and is active in the Model Alliance. She has produced and directed a video featuring her fellow models, encouraging young people to become politically active. Early life Cumming was born in Manhattan to Alec Cumming and Cynthia Harden, who (at the time) were a creative partnership as well as a marital one - writing, performing, and releasing songs in the alternative pop band Bite The Wax Godhead (1990-1998). Julia grew up in the East Village, Manhattan, attended New York City public schools, and started a band - Supercute! - along with neighborhood friends June Lei and Rachel Trachtenburg (of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players) in 2009. Supercute!, a bubblegum-girl-group-psychedelic-pop amalgam, created (in Cumming's words) "ukulele rock operas"; the band lasted through 2013 with Cumming and Trachtenburg serving as their creative core. "It was almost an art project about not letting your age or being a girl stop you from trying anything," Julia told the New Musical Express in 2016. Cumming and Trachtenburg also co-hosted a talk show (Pure Imagination, 2011-2013), on the Progressive Radio Network, aimed at encouraging fellow teens to become involved in art and political action. In 2014, Cumming graduated as a vocal music student at Professional Performing Arts School, made her acting debut in the movie short People Who Don't Know Me, and performed solo gigs with original musical material at local clubs. She also interned at the Museum of Modern Art, where she curated an off-site show about instagram art. There she met choreographer Dean Moss, who cast her for a leading role in his dance piece johnbrown, which debuted at The Kitchen on October 16, 2014. Musical influences "When I was a really little kid," Cumming told the New York Times, "my parents had a VHS tape called 'Glam Rock.' It was about 15 songs of Gary Glitter, T.