Love changes Norwegian singer’s life

By Juan Escandor Jr. GUBAT, Sorsogon---For four years, Norwegian singer Lars Christian Storkersen, 40, battled depression until he was invited by his sister in Singapore for a vacation. While in Singapore, Storkersen met a Bicolana, Joanne Ereño, 30, whom he fell in love with at first sight. “I cannot shake off Joanne in mind, so I decided to ask her to marry me,” he said. Storkersen, a popular singer in Norway in the 1990s, said that meeting Joanne has changed his perspective in life and healed his depression. He said for four years he cut himself off from his friends and career as singer and lived alone in the apartment, almost killing himself with so much booze. “But things changed when I met my wife,” Storkersen said. He said he asked Joanne to live in Norway for three years where they bore a baby girl and named her Maine Ingrid. Joanne said at first Storkersen’s sister was against their relations but later she gave in because her husband was really adamant to marry her. Storkersen said because of her love to Joanne, he felt that their baby must learn and know where her mother came from, so they decided to come home to Gubat last year. “I want my child to know the place and the culture of her mother while she is still young,” he said. When Storkersen arrived in this town, he immediately felt the warmth of hospitality of the people here and started to love the place where his wife was born and grew up. After going around the town and other places in the province of Sorsogon, he fell in love with the country and decided to live his life here. Not only that he regained his zest for life, Storkersen said his love for singing was rekindled. With his deep love to Joanne and the place where she lived, he made a very important decision---he will live in Gubat and sell all his properties in Norway and build a new life in the Philippines. With his love for music and singing rekindled, Storkersen produced a music video of the song “Georgia on my mind” he recorded and earlier released. “Georgia on my mind” is a song written and composed by Hoagy Carmichael and Stuart Gorrel in 1930 which tells about segregation of white and black in the State of Georgia. Storkersen said he wanted the song to be his own so he hired a local team to do the music video with a storyline that approximates his love for Joanne and the place. Published on Jan. 15 this year, Storskersen’s “Georgia on my mind” music video has garnered more than 800,000 views as of Wednesday, outnumbering the views earned by the music video of Michael Bolton of the same song. Storkersen plans to build a big house in this town with a studio and concert venue. “Once done, I will invite my friends to come here to hold a concert and maybe help with the tourism industry in the locality,” he said.