Embers
Creative Team

David Ornette Cherry - Composer
David Ornette Cherry was born the same year his father, Don Cherry, and godfather, Ornette Coleman, recorded their first album, SOMETHIN' ELSE. David grew up in Watts, California. He studied music composition at Bishop College in Dallas and world music at California Institute of the Arts. He spent challenging and unforgettable summers attending the Creative Music Studio at Woodstock, New York. These summer experiences gave him the space to compose and create music with Trilok Gurtu, Olatunji, Jai Deva, and Foday Musa Suso and to explore the relationship of jazz and music from other cultures. His background includes performances with Don Cherry, Ed Blackwell, Charlie Haden, Billy Higgins, Dewey Redman, Nana Vasconcelos, Olatunji, Hassan Hakmoun, Carlos Ward, Jim Pepper, Collin Walcott, Wadada Leo Smith, Phil Ranelin, Ralph "Buzzy" Jones and Justo Almario. He is the recipient of the ASCAP- Chamber Music America Award for Adventurous Programming of Contemporary Music. He also trains young musicians in world music, theory and piano. Acoustic piano, electronic keyboards, melodica, wood flute and douss'n gouni are his instruments.

Terry Wolverton – Librettist/Playwright
Literary Artist Terry Wolverton is the author of eleven books of fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry, including Embers, a novel in poems, a finalist for the PEN LitFest Award and from which this work is adapted. Her memoir, Insurgent Muse: life and art at the Woman's Building, received the Judy Grahn Award from the Publishing Triangle. She has also edited fourteen literary compilations and published internationally in journals and anthologies. Between 1976 and 1987, she produced several collaborative and solo works of theater and performance art, presenting at the Woman's Building, Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions, Barnsdall Gallery Theater (Los Angeles), Sushi Gallery (San Diego) and ABC No Rio (New York), among other venues. From 2000-2004, she collaborated with Heidi Duckler/Collage Dance Theater on a series of site-specific performances in Los Angeles and Miami. She is the recipient of a California Arts Council Fellowship, a COLA (City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs) grant, and two Durfee Foundation ARC grants, as well as additional funding from Department of Cultural Affairs and the California Arts Council. She is the founder of Writers At Work, where she teaches fiction, creative nonfiction and poetry; she also serves as an Associate Faculty Mentor in the MFA Writing Program at Antioch University Los Angeles. In addition, she is a certified instructor of Kundalini Yoga.