Jazz and world music composer David Ornette Cherry’s
Organic Nation Listening Club
at Artists Rep for TWO DAYS ONLY, November 1 & 2
WHO: David Ornette Cherry
WHAT: Presented production of Organic Nation Listening Club
WHEN: Saturday, November 1 @ 7:30pm & Sunday, November 2 @ 2pm
WHERE: Artists Repertory Theatre – Morrison Stage, 1515 Morrison St. Portland, OR 97205
TICKETS: $15
- General Admission
October 9, 2014. Artists Rep and David Ornette Cherry partner to present Organic Nation Listening Club, an innovative music and performance convergence by Portland’s premiere jazz and world music composer David Ornette Cherry. Integrating storytelling, visual art installation, and his Organic Nation band, Cherry takes the audience into a deep listening space of images and emotional landscapes that evoke his childhood of growing up in Watts, surrounded by “free jazz” innovators, the Watts Prophets, funk garage bands, Young Souls, the junior high theatre group and the Locke High School Marching Band. The music, humor, warmth and political awareness from these “multi-culti” origins are integrated into a positive, spiritually uplifting and innovative jazz and performance production.
ORGANIC NATION LISTENING CLUB
Glenn Moore – Bass
Carlton Jackson – Drums, soundscape
Renarto Carento – Sax
David Ornette Cherry – Piano, melodica, keys
Culturally Adrift Community Players – Gregg Bielemeier, Dorinda Holler, Stephanie Schaaf and
Celine Bouly
Renee Ward – dancer
God’s Instrument – poet
Director – Susan Banyas
Lighting – Peter West
Set Design/ Lighting – Bill Boesse
ABOUT DAVID ORNETTE CHERRY
David Ornette Cherry grew up in Watts, California. This Watts young man later won the 2003 ASCAP- Chamber Music America Award for adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. Cherry writes, arranges, and improvises music from sunrise to sunset.
The pulses and melodies that arise from his jazz, classical, African, world music background, and from playing with some of the great jazz artists of our times, speak about our human experiences through the language of sound. He listens with an open heart and fresh mind to his collaborators and the world around him in a way that makes his compositions not only music, but a way of life a positive form of energy, and a way to connect. Current work is titled Ensemble for Improvisors. He trains young musicians in world music, theory, and piano.
David was born the same year Ornette Coleman and Don Cherry recorded their first album, SOMETHIN ELSE. The ambient music streaming through his childhood was generated by the early collaborations of his dad, Don Cherry, with Coleman and the musicians who visited his parents’ Mariposa Avenue home in Los Angeles. It was a wood-chopping accident one summer in Sweden that sealed David’s musical fate as he was confined to music study and later performing with his Dad at the age of 16 years old. For more, visit www.davidornettecherry.com
ABOUT ARTISTS REPERTORY THEATRE
Portland’s premiere mid-size regional theatre company is led by Artistic Director Dámaso Rodriguez and Managing Director Sarah Horton. Founded in 1982, Artists Repertory Theatre is the longest-running professional theatre company in Portland. For the 2014/15 season Artists Rep will offer eight bold and entertaining plays written by internationally acclaimed playwrights, and guided by esteemed directors. Artists Rep productions will feature the work of a core group of accomplished Resident Artists, each with a shared history and a shorthand for collaboration, working alongside guest artists from Portland and beyond.
Artists Rep’s mission is to engage diverse audiences in fresh, thought-provoking and intimate theatre. We are committed to world-class acting, directing, design and stagecraft that support new playwriting and aspire to embody great literature, moving audiences to truly feel — to experience — storytelling in a way that only the best live theatre can.
The 2014/15 Artists Repertory Theatre season is presented by Ronni Lacroute/WillaKenzie Estate. Our season media sponsors are The Oregonian and KINK. Other season support comes from the Regional Arts Culture Council, The Oregon Community Foundation, the Collins Foundation, the Harold and Arlene Schnitzer CARE Foundation, Meyer Memorial Trust, The James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation and Rafati’s Catering. More information at www.artistsrep.org.
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Marketing & Public Relations Director
Artists Repertory Theatre
1515 SW Morrison St.
Portland, OR 97205
