J Cruise Berry (b. 1989) is a composer, pianist, & writer who grew up in rural Oklahoma & lives in Los Angeles, California. Currently, he is the company pianist for Spark Creative Lab & collaborative pianist for the Weitzenhoffer School of Musical Theatre. An artist on Grammy award-winning Azica Records, his music has been performed by Ethel, members of the Dallas Symphony, Cleveland Symphony, Oklahoma City Philharmonic, & New York Philharmonic.
Sculpture Music
This work is, “music from the fingers” and shot from the hip. Improvised. Extemporized. And tediously rehearsed. It’s scored for piano, alto saxophone, and incredibly large wood sculpture of a hand and metal bird. The work’s architecture behaves in offensively broad strokes of gesture and spiraling modulations. Chords rub against one another in passive major second suspensions. There are moments of flight,; anxiously repetitive gestures descending downward in small model scales that call to mind a mother bird tending her little ones from the tippy top of an ancient sycamore.
One briny New England morning, a fisherman, from Rockport or Gloucester, woke to find his wife, Ana, was gone.
His feet stretched and ached and went right into his slippers.
They were gone.
His hand stretched and ached and reached for the bedside lantern. It was gone.
She had taken them.
Labrador. Clothes. His favorite comb.
She had taken it all.