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.

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

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.