J Cruise Berry (b. 1989) is a classical composer, pianist, and baker. He would not have it any other way. Born and raised on a sheep farm in the middle of a tremendous stretch of flat land to an Arab father and Chickasaw mother, he finds himself continually exploring ways to relate and incorporate the two heritages in the kitchen and at the piano. He studied music composition and piano performance at Oklahoma City University.

Until its closing, he was the Bread Baker and Assistant Pastry Chef at beloved artisan bakery, Prairie Thunder. His love of naturally leavened bread and pastry lives on as the baking columnist for award-winning, regional food magazine, EdibleOKC, as baker/owner of a small cottage bakery, and in the stomachs of his friends. He works as a freelance composer, accompanist, conductor, and collaborator and teaches private piano and group piano at a nonprofit music school for at-risk youth.

His music, having been performed at the The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Guggenheim Museum in New York, Fondazione Prada, The Kennedy Center, First Americans Museum, a 500 year old Italian catacomb, and more locally and well-lit at the Cox Convention Center and even more recently in his Lincoln Terrace apartment to an enthusiastic audience of his adoring dog, Kita, has been described by NewMusicBox as, “an exciting, intensely rhythmic roller coaster” with it’s “Shostakovich slashing figures” (Gramophone Magazine). Lee Passarella of Audiophile Audition says of his music, “very strong work... his obsessive rhythms and repetition of a brief thematic cell call to mind Steve Reich or Terry Riley... clearly music with a big compositional horizon.”

His music has been recorded on the Grammy Award winning record label, Thunderbird Records, by NYC-based "virtuosic alternative string quartet," (The New Yorker), Ethel, in a landmark, first-of-its-kind recording that Encore Magazine states, “reflects a maturity in structure and professionalism in tempo that any veteran contemporary composer would strive for as a marquee achievement.”

Early Spring 2017 was spent rescoring and rehearsing for the premiere of his fourth string chamber work, Donne XIV in Five Cues, premiered June 2017 by new music ensemble, Crossing Borders, at the American Indian Center in Chicago. The work was later performed alongside quartets by Schubert and Haydn as part of the Concerts in the Shed series which seeks to provide world class chamber music to rural Wisconsin. Later, the work was adopted into curricula on innovation and creativity for Chicago public schools.

Beginning Spring 2017 and continuing to present, he hosts and moderates, in galleries and public spaces in Oklahoma City, free quarterly listening and discussions of musical works to encourage public discourse and empathy through listening.

As part of Oklahoma Contemporary’s explorative programming, he premiered a set of woodwind duos for clarinet and flute, [BREAD], alongside 2018 Bon Appetit’s Best New Restaurant winner and chef of Nonesuch, Colin Stringer, where attendants were able to experience a synthesis of sound and food through eating the bread the work was conceptually derived from.

In September 2018, his chamber opera-in-progress, rhapsodizing on food and feminism at the height of WWII rationing, How to Cook a Wolf, was selected as a finalist for the micro-granting competition, Paseo Feast 14.

In Winter 2019, he created, with chef/artist Angela Chase, a large bread and foraged foods, site-specific installation, Thanks for Nothing, and composed music to play on loop until the installation collapsed from decay and rot.

Kiowa/Shawnee dancer/choreographer Ruthe Margaret Boyett, danced under a bridge for his work, Fantasia, performed by Ethel, which was broadcast live across the globe November 2020 as part of The Met’s Balcony Bar at Home series.

Spring 2021, he was working with the Ravinia Festival and Crossing Borders Music, who are recording and performing his string works for in-classroom teaching and festival promotional materials on themes of resilience and creativity through adversity.

When not playing with his dog or thinking up new ways to combine the experiences of food and music, he serves on the Associate Board of the Oklahoma City Philharmonic as Treasurer, enthusiastically trail runs through Chickasaw country, eats far too much local honey, and works as a collaborative pianist for The University of Oklahoma Weitzenhoeffer School of Musical Theatre.

In his heart, he longs for the ideal collaborative ethos – a quest for a common creative expression that is forged in the fostering of community - and the perfect bentwood reading chair. He believes that music and all arts are a training field for innovation and empathy. Cruise lives in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.