I am currently creating a full-length performance piece, entitled "Recovering Eurydice," that explores and describes my (in-progress) recovery from a violent car wreck, through the lens of myth, music, storytelling, shadow play and movement.  In the original Greek myth, Eurydice abruptly descends into the Underworld after being bitten by a viper and must await rescue. I will reimagine her tale as one where Eurydice learns an essential truth: that she must rescue herself.  

There exists an aggressive and damaging narrative that traumatic experiences ought to be overcome and then forgotten.  In my experience, recovery is a chaotic, disjointed and extremely slow process. "Recovering Eurydice" is my disordered healing story and I am well enough to tell it now. I believe it will be valuable to others who may be taking their first tentative steps towards recovery. 

I have been a working musician and songwriter since 1998.  Over the years, I have expanded my practice from creating songs to developing large scale performance works that move my songs and stories into additional modes of expression, such as theater, puppetry, visual arts and movement.  In 2013, I was struck by a criminally intoxicated driver during a tour in Texas. I was physically and psychologically traumatized by this event. At the beginning of my recovery, I had no idea the amount of patience, forgiveness, grief, chaos, change, exuberant joy and cleansing anger that I would feel. My arts practice has been a vital part of my physical recovery and existential recovery from my diagnosis of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.) I have begun to see the event as folded into my creativity, as my creativity then fosters my healing in an amazing feedback loop.  I have created artifacts, including those in my Work Samples: songs, drawings, meditative movement, a podcast and even a ‘zine (a one-sheet, foldable, pocket-sized, DIY magazine)--a documentation my progress. 

Through the persona of Eurydice, I will describe my own Underworld and my passage through and out of it.  Greek mythology offers a structure for this project. There are five rivers in the Underworld, each representing phases of my recovery.  The rivers are: Phlegethon (guilt and shame), Styx (anger), Acheron (pain), Cocytus (sadness), Lethe (forgetting). They are told out of order: 

Chapter 2:  Tornado (Eurydice experiences a chaotic series of events, directly following her trauma)

Chapter 5:  Exit (Eurydice is in recovery and in the light of hope and learning, leaves the Underworld)

Chapter 1:  Oobleeyet (Eurydice is traumatized)

Chapter 4:  Shadow (Eurydice contemplates an early and unnatural exit)

Chapter 3:  Hamamatsu (Eurydice finds grace and gratitude in grief)

I believe that my area of expertise is to gather people into a sacred and empathic space for a period of time, where listening to music and stories is the focus of everyone’s attention.  I believe this is a radical act in today’s culture. I think it’s important to acknowledge that listening to and viewing live performance art is a way to reconnect us to experiences, emotions and are a naturally community-building event.  When we spend time together in rooms, hearing and telling stories, we become closer. (I’ve also explicitly said to audiences: “You aren’t shopping or engaging with your phone right now. This is a radical act because we are actively maintaining your autonomy over your own attention.”)  

My next steps will be to find focused time to structure the narrative, continue to write songs centered around the project, and to find a director. I believe that my public performances will play out the aforementioned “feedback loop,” albeit one between myself and the audience.  Performing will be healing for me to remember and replay through my recovery; it will be healing for members of the audience who may resonate with the story I am telling. "Recovering Eurydice" is an expression of my in-progress recovery and is important to me--every day that I continue it, I am rescuing myself.

Portraits in Song is:

"..a glimpse into a vast emotional galaxy"  ---Amanda Gunther, TheaterBloom review of live performance, March 2017

A live performance piece
11 original songs
11 magnificent projected portraits of women, woven together with personal stories, songs, and two quilts

A celebration
A dance between melody and lyric and pencil and paper
A rich and pleasurable experience
A space for people to join together in love.

I’m ellen cherry and I’m a song and story alchemist. I created a performance piece for you that springs directly from my love of storytelling and my passion for history. The purpose of this project is to turn our gaze away from imposed beauty standards and instead see women as powerful thinkers and doers.

**Liz Downing is the artist who created the portraits currently in this project.  Her website is:  www.lizdowningart.com

ARTISTIC STATEMENT

Portraits in Song features the live performance of eleven original songs inspired by the stories of powerful women in history. The musical performance is accompanied by large scale projections of commissioned portraits by the artist Liz Downing.  It is intended to be a house concert and salon piece to prompt questions and emotions to increase empathy and connection between all peoples.

I’m ellen cherry. I am a musician, composer, and performer. I have created a performance piece that springs from my love of storytelling and my passion for history. The purpose of the project is to shift our attention away from imposed detrimental beauty standards and instead see women as powerful thinkers and doers.

I want to celebrate women’s stories and highlight the value of their work.

These stories guide us, inform us, educate and embolden all people. An incredible ripple effect will occur when women all over the world are allowed to flourish, and their work given its proper value. We can help to turn women’s ambitions and aspirations into actions that will affect incredible positive environmental and social change.

NOTE:  I toured this project from 2016-2019.  Elements of the performance remain in my live performances.

"Listen In with ellen cherry" is a once monthly, live, web-streaming short form broadcast featuring the music and arts scene in Baltimore and hosted by Emmy nominated, Baltimore-based singer, songwriter and producer, ellen cherry.

From the website:

"I created an album of songs in 2012 requesting that my parents not sell my childhood piano, titled, strangely enough "Please Don't Sell the Piano" (I do like to be polite.)

Well...they shipped me the piano! Too big to take on tour, I decided it would be great to do a live, streaming show from the room where the piano lives....featuring an interview and performance with some of my hard working and incredibly talented musician, artist, and performer friends.

Tune into www.ellencherry.tv
ALL EPISODES NOW AVAILABLE AT www.ellencherry.com

Every month, 30-40 minutes of your time (well spent!)"

SEASON TWO:

January 12 @ 2PM--BRYAN YOUNG (of the Poulenc Trio)
www.poulenctrio.org

February 23 @ 2PM--Cris Jacobs
www.crisjacobs.com

March 9 @ 2PM-Ruut DeMeo
www.ruutmusic.com

May 11 @ 2PM-Super City

June --Brooks Long

July -- Peter Minkler (violist of the BSO)

AUGUST -- The 5th L returns!!

September -- The Mole Suit Choir

October -- June Star returns!!

November -- Talking Points

The performance is free to you, all you have to do is listen in.

Pickett's Charge occurred on July 3, 1863, on the last day of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War and was considered the high water mark for the Confederacy, from which they never fully recovered. Over 50% of the men that went into this battle died--a huge casualty amount and great psychological cost, as well. On March 19, 2010, the 7th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, I was thinking about the complicated motives of why people war, the consequences of military action, both intended and unintended, and the horrible after-effects that alway follow any conflicts. Around the same time, there was a news report about a supernova star's light that was finally reaching Earth, after exploding several million years ago, and I was fascinated by the dichotomy in these two ideas and that, as a species, plenty of our thinking tends towards the painfully small-minded. (I am not excluding myself from this thinking!) All of these thoughts contributed to the writing of this song and recording it for my 2012 EP "Please Don't Sell the Piano".

I asked Katherine Fahey to create a "crankie" shadow puppet piece to accompany "Pickett's Charge". Kathy is an amazing and accomplished paper-cut artist, who has recently made incredible strides into the shadow puppet theatre world, especially through her crankies, (a hand cranked scrolling story telling device in a box). You can find more about Katherine and her incredible work at www.katherinefahey.com

I hope you'll enjoy seeing Katherine's visual interpretation of my song which was filmed by Michael Patrick O'Leary (www.michaelpatrickoleary.com) in high definition for you, here. This is truly "handmade" music and visual and performance art. Please spread the word about this video and pass the link and always, continue to support independent musicians and artists so they can continue to create! Thank you for listening and watching! Thank you to all the Indiegogo supporters who made this possible!

SPECIAL NOTE! As part of my residency in the Strathmore Artist-in-Residence program, I was asked to premiere a new work that had not been performed before. As a special treat, Katherine and I premiered "Pickett's Charge", both the crankie and the song, as part of my final performance of my residency and it occurred on February 22, 2012, at the Strathmore Mansion. Special thanks to Strathmore for encouraging collaboration and for giving us the space and time for this unique presentation.

Video Credits:
Song: "Pickett's Charge" from "Please Don't Sell the Piano"
Songwriter/Performer: ellen cherry
Puppet Show: Katherine Fahey
Director of Photography: Michael Patrick O'Leary
Sound: Nick Sjostrom
Crank Box Construction: Neal Golden
Lights: Shaun Wilson and Neal Golden
Editing: Matt Riggieri

Unlike typical Pink Floyd “cover” acts that sound like the original, Mobtown Moon is a new
interpretation with compelling flavors of jazz, rock, bluegrass, gospel, classical, and even hip-hop. An ambitious project that took three years to plan and produce, Mobtown Moon is the brainchild of pianist/vocalist and former CityPaper columnist Sandy Asirvatham with her co-producer, the award-winning singer-songwriter ellen cherry.

The studio CD Mobtown Moon involved 40 local artists and was released in May 2013 to wide acclaim. CityPaper hailed it as “wildly eclectic yet consistently absorbing,” and Baltimore Magazine honored with a “Best of Baltimore” award. Following a series of sneak-peek performances in 2012 and early 2013, the September 28 event was the first time the album will be performed in its entirety. New versions of hits like “Money” and “Us and Them” will delight longtime Floyd fans and attract new listeners. The project highlights the beautiful melodies and lyrics of these well-crafted songs.

ellen cherry acted as Art Director for the cover of the album and commissioned the cover art from Baltimore area painter, Sylvia Ortiz. The album design was directed by ellen cherry and completed by local graphic artist, Scott Dennison. cherry's intention was to use as many Baltimore area artists as possible for the entire scope of the project to bring Baltimore's talents to the world, using the Pink Floyd fan base as a platform, while illustrating a high respect for the source material.

The CD was funded by a grant and donations, and recorded in dozens of sessions between July and December 2012. Together, we recruited over 30 musicians to participate in the recording. We had a couple of simultaneous missions:

1) to honor this influential and inspiring classic rock album
2) to bring together rock, jazz, classical, and other styles of music and diverse performers from across many different Baltimore "scenes"
3) to let the whole world know about the incredible creativity and talent contained here in Charm City's music and arts scene
4) to create a recording that harks back to the days of fully realized "concept albums" that flowed beautifully from beginning to end, and that were meant to be really LISTENED TO, not just used as background music
5) to pair our new arrangements (primarily conceived/created by Sandy, except for "On The Run", which I arranged) with beautiful theatrical elements such as shadow puppetry and film (to be primarily conceived/created by ellen)
6) to develop a template and learn/establish best practices that we and other musicians can use to handle the creative, collaborative, financial, and marketing aspects of this type of ambitious project

Our CD, Mobtown Moon, was released on April 2013 and we held our world premiere performance at the Kraushaar on September 28, 2013 to an audience of 750 people.

In 15 years of writing, recording and independently producing my own music, I have yet to work with an outside producer. Caleb Stine, a local songwriter in Baltimore and a close personal friend noticed that I was writing more intimate, personal, storytelling songs on piano, over the last year and asked to help produce a collection of songs with me that focus specifically on the craft of great songwriting. We began working on this project as the songs showed up, late in 2009 and early 2010, but took a break for the summer gigging season. We decided to use this Winter--typically not a busy time for traveling songwriters--to really dig into what makes a great song: listening to some of the masters (Leonard Cohen, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, Tom Waits, etc.), reading about songwriting and writing prose, poetry and diary entries. Caleb's influence has been to keep me disciplined about writing every day, even if it is not song lyrics. We are also studying and pulling ourselves through the arduous process of crafting each single line in a song--searching for the most descriptive line or rhyme and really looking for the best way to convey meaning to the listener. This is my most personal work yet and I'm both excited and afraid to be presenting it to the public. Next week, we will begin recording the songs that are closest to completion. We are recording with master recordist and engineer, Nick Sjostrom, who helped me record 2010's "(New) Years."

The second facet of this project is the piano. I have been primarily a guitarist for the last 15 years, returning to the piano for a song or two on each album. These songs have appeared to me as piano songs and I'm excited to improve my technique and skill on the piano through careful practice and learning other people's songs. Already, in a few short weeks of rehearsal, I can feel my body growing stronger. My willingness to experiment on the piano and my curiosity about how chords work and flow together, has also grown by leaps and bounds. It is again a revelation that I will never stop learning!

This EP will be ready to present to audiences in March 2012 and that it will help to inspire, comfort and move people who hear it, the way I have been moved by so many great compositions in the past.

I am collaborating with Katherine Fahey (www.2hawks2fishes.com) on both a special edition cd that will have papercut and interactivity, as well as a "crankie" shadow puppet piece based on one of the songs "Pickett's Charge."

My first project with Nana Projects was the score for a shadow puppet piece entitled "Alonzo's Lullaby", which was about a circus train wreck that occurred south of Chicago in 1918. My co-composer and performer on this show is Nicholas Sjostrom. The show was awarded the highest national Puppetry Award, the USA-UNIMA Citation of Excellence in 2010.

Nana Projects has asked me to create another or their shadow puppet pieces, "Eureka!" (inspired by Edgar Allan Poe.) We debuted this piece at the 2011 New Orleans Fringe Festival, and the official world premiere was in January 2012 at Joe's Emporium in Washington, DC.

I reunite with Nana Projects in 2013 to compose the score for our next piece "Opal" which will be about the diary and life of Opal Whitely.

In 2005, I recorded an EP project of 6 songs called "Years" that was heavily inspired by Women's History. I casually explored a few women's stories, taking facts and details and embellishing them into a sort of fictional-truth mish mash. The songs were a result of my participation in February Album Writing Month (www.fawm.org), an online gathering where songwriters meet every year to attempt to write 14 songs in 28 days. The pressure pushed me to source something very dear to my heart: History. For example, "1933: To California" was inspired by Dorothea Lange's iconic photograph "Migrant Mother" that documented Florence Thompson's struggle to survive. "1912: Violet Swims but the Ship Sinks" takes its title from Violet Jessup's survival of the Titanic sinking, but is also about the musicians who drowned with the ship. "1864: A Civil War Bride" is the sad, but hopeful imaginary conversation of a woman with her husband, who has felt the call of patriotic duty.

Fast forward to 2009; the songs, now 4 years old have blossomed and changed in structure and sound and so I wanted to re-visit many of them in another recording. I also had new songs that needed to be presented in recorded form, so I added another 6 songs and I made the full length "(New) Years". I released this project in February 2010 and have had a great year of touring and playing the songs from the album. I have decided to re-press this disc, but with different artwork and am currently working with a photographer to capture a picture that really represents the music that I am presenting.

Mobtown Moon is a new interpretation of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon in honor of it's upcoming 40th anniversary. Our genre-defying version of this classic album highlights the lyrical and melodic beauty of the original, by taking the songs out of their stadium-rock context and reconsidering them from a grown-up, singer-focused perspective.

Co produced by myself and my friend and musician, Sandy Asirvatham. Our first "deliverables" are a full-length CD, that was released in spring 2013 and a world premiere performance at the Kraushaar (Goucher auditorium) on September 28, 2013.

Sandy has served as chief arranger of 10 of the eleven tracks and I took on arranging the instrumental "On The Run" (re-imagining it with banjo instead of the famous arpeggiator.)

As Art Director for this project, at our live performance this fall, I determined the look and feel and Sandy created expansions/elaborations of our music in order to create a full-length show with intermission. (Our studio album itself is only 49 minutes long.) The project was created in part to highlight the eclectic music and arts scene in Baltimore by giving the stage over to 50+ Baltimore area musicians (Sandy and I also performed), ranging in genres from hip-hop to jazz, bluegrass to opera. Our band consisted of 24 musicians and we additionally welcomed 27 members of the Baltimore Choral Arts Society. We promoted the performance for 10 months, garnering an audience of 750 people.

In 2014, I and Sandy will continue to push Mobtown Moon to other audiences in other cities and have plans to book a smaller version of the show (only 20 musicians) in Philadelphia, Washington DC and Rockville.

In 2015, we will produce a second Baltimore area show to welcome back fans from the first performance and gain an even wider audience for both the album and a rotating roster of Baltimore's finest and hardest working musicians!

More information is contained in this press release that we issued NATIONALLY at the end of 2012:

Baltimore Musicians Take on Pink Floyd:
Cross Genre Artists Revisit Dark Side of the Moon on Album’s 40th Anniversary

Baltimore musicians are reimagining classic Pink Floyd with an ambitious project called Mobtown Moon. This immense collaboration enlists more than thirty Baltimore musicians from different genres to celebrate the upcoming 40th anniversary of the Dark Side of the Moon with a recording and concerts.

Unlike a typical note-for-note replay of the original album, Mobtown Moon features fresh new arrangements, infusing these classic rock songs with elements of jazz, hip-hop, choral music, and other styles. It pulls the material out of a stadium-rock context to focus on its compelling lyrics and beautiful melodies. Longtime Floyd fans and new listeners alike will hear much that intrigues and pleases.

Mobtown Moon is the brainchild of pianist/vocalist and former CityPaper columnist Sandy Asirvatham, and is being co-produced by award-winning singer-songwriter ellen cherry.

Asirvatham’s original music and trenchant arrangements are known for exploring dark emotional themes with a light touch. Emmy-nominated cherry has built a national folllowing with unique indie-pop songs often inspired by historical events. Their memorable duet on “Breathe” includes jazz rhythms, electric guitar licks, and wispy accordion fills, illustrating the eclectic approach of the whole project. cherry says that Baltimore “has a unique petri dish quality that naturally allows cross-collaboration.”

The co-creators publicly introduced the project at a spring 2012 fundraiser in an apt setting: a downtown Baltimore rowhouse. Additional preview concerts drew heavy audiences. A six-week crowdfunding campaign at IndieGoGo raised nearly $6,000 before a local foundation gifted a significant grant. The project still offers opportunities for major donors to “claim a track” as a special executive producer (until December 10) or receive other VIP benefits.

The album Mobtown Moon will be released digitally in March. Physical copies go on sale in April. In September 28, 2013, the full album will be performed at Kraushaar Auditiorium, a popular cultural destination on the campus of Goucher College in Baltimore County, Maryland.

Participating artists span the diversity of Baltimore’s incredibly rich music scene. Featured artists include jam-band guitarist/vocalist Cris Jacobs, gospel singer Lea Gilmore, folk-rock trio We’re About 9, rap duo The 5th L, and jazz heavyweights Russell Kirk (alto sax) and Todd Marcus (bass clarinet).The city’s classical tradition is represented by Baltimore Choral Arts Society (venerated conductor Tom Hall), Poulenc Trio bassoonist Bryan Young, and Morgan State University’s opera director Vincent Dion Stringer.

Mobtown Moon has partnered with several Baltimore nonprofits, including Hearing and Speech Agency of Baltimore (HASA). HASA and Mobtown Moon asked local citizens to record interesting sounds from city streets and neighborhoods. The resulting “found sounds” are being layered into the recording as another genuine Baltimore stamp on the project.

"The Holey Land: An Allegory" (2016)

Fertile land, abundant shellfish and proximity to waterways afforded good living to native peoples, and later to early settlers and prospectors along the southeast coastline of present day Baltimore. On 'fair meadows' near the Patapsco River and Curtis Bay, in an area now known as Baybrook, orchards and farms, canneries and company towns sprang up, and with them, vibrant, tight-knit communities. The pastoral isolation of the sparsely populated peninsula drew Sunday visitors from Baltimore, and later - quarantine hospitals, fertilizer factories, oil refineries, power plants and brown fields. This story is inspired by "An Environmental History of Fairfield/Wagner Point" and Free Your Voice's current campaign to stop the building of the nation's largest incinerator in Curtis Bay.

I have composed the score for “The Holey Land: A Fable” -- a “crankie” (hand-cranked shadow puppet piece) created by visual artist, Valeska Populoh, that addresses the environmental damages inflicted by industry upon a vulnerable landscape and community called Curtis Bay, located in Baltimore, MD.

I am creating a short film that features the crankie and my original score, supported by funds from a Rubys Grant and the Puffin Foundation. This film will be screened in the Spring 2016.

"Pickett's Charge" (2012)

In 2012, I commisioned Katherine Fahey to create a "crankie" shadow puppet piece to accompany "Pickett's Charge". Kathy is an amazing and accomplished paper-cut artist, who has recently made incredible strides into the shadow puppet theatre world, especially through her crankies, (a hand cranked scrolling story telling device in a box). You can find more about Katherine and her incredible work at www.katherinefahey.com I hope you'll enjoy seeing Katherine's visual interpretation of my song which was filmed by Michael Patrick O'Leary (www.michaelpatrickoleary.com) and produced by ellen cherry. This is truly "handmade" music and visual and performance art.

"Whipoorwill Lodge" (2014)

Paul Loyd (he's Just This Guy) ran a song contest a few years back and the rules were to write a song about a family vacation that contained these words: family, vacation, travel, relax, and souvenir. Extra points were awarded if the word "monkey" made it in there somehow. I have distinct memories of this particular vacation with my family and I hope that it provides you with a little peek into a wonderful time in the past. I created a video to accompany the song

"Since You Left Me" by Naked Blue (2014)

A pop song written by acoustic duo Naked Blue. I created this "titles only" video for the song. My first creation on Adobe premiere.

"Please Don't Sell the Piano" (2012)

A video I created about the move my piano made from Texas to Maryland. The song was inspired by this piano and is featured on my 2012 album of the same name

"Can't Count" (2009)

My very first "titles only" video for my song "Can't Count" from my 2008 album, "Heart Like a Lion."

"Passing Season [Isolated Vocals]" (2013)

Song by ellen cherry and Naked Blue. Filmed by Naked Blue and ellen cherry, titles by ellen cherry.