On Thursday, September 25th at 8pm, ISSUE Project Room & Anthology Film Archives present a special screening of Robert Ashley’s Music with Roots in the Aether: The Music of David Behrman (1975). Ashley’s seminal video opera explores the lives and works of key figures within the American experimental tradition, and episodically centers seven different composers including Philip Glass, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley and Robert Ashley himself. But this Fall, ISSUE and Anthology revive the series of portraits to center the pioneering music of 2025 ISSUE Gala honoree, David Behrman.
Described by Ashley as “a music-theater piece in color video,” the work stands as both a monumental collaboration with fellow composers and a durational portrait of a vital artistic lineage. Music With Roots in the Aether documents the post-serial, post-Cage stylistic shift that transformed American concert music beginning in the 1960s. Ashley wrote: “The collaborative aspect of Music With Roots in the Aether is in the theater of the interviews…I am indebted to all of the composers involved for their generosity in allowing me to portray them in this manner.” Shot in long, unedited takes, the visual style presents performance without interference—what Ashley called “a new way to show music being performed,” where the frame itself becomes the stage. This rigorous approach not only preserves the integrity of the music but also transforms each interview into a quiet, embodied theater of ideas. AFA & ISSUE Members receive discounted tickets to the screening, featuring an introduction to the film by David Behrman himself.
This year’s Gala recognizes David Behrman’s innovative contributions to electronic and experimental music, his collaborative spirit, and his influence on the integration of technology and live performance. Behrman’s visionary work, and enduring collaborations, place him at the center of an expansive network of ISSUE-affiliated artists. It is in recognition of this profound influence and artistic kinship that we are proud to honor him at the 2025 Gala celebration.
Runtime: approx. 2 hours.
Produced and directed by Robert Ashley. Philip Makanna, Director and Camera; Maggi Payne, Audio Recordist; Jerry Pearsall, Video Recordist and Technical Director.
Robert Ashley (1930–2014) is particularly known for his work in new forms of opera. In Ann Arbor in the 1960s, Ashley organized the ONCE Festival and directed the legendary ONCE Group, with whom he developed his first operas. Throughout the 1970s, he directed the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College and toured with the Sonic Arts Union. He produced and directed Music with Roots in the Aether, a 14-hour television opera/documentary about the work and ideas of seven American composers. His opera for television, Perfect Lives, is widely considered the precursor of “music-television.” Stage versions of Perfect Lives, Atalanta (Acts of God), Improvement (Don Leaves Linda), Foreign Experiences, eL/Aficionado and Now Eleanor’s Idea toured throughout the US and Canada, Europe and Asia during the 1980s and 90s. Dust, followed by Celestial Excursions and The Old Man Lives in Concrete toured from 1999–2012. He finished his last two operas (Crash and Quicksand) in 2013. Crash was presented as part of the 2014 Whitney Biennial; The Kitchen presented Quicksand in early 2016. New productions of Foreign Experiences and Celestial Excursions were co-produced by Roulette Intermedium and Performing Artservices in 2024 and 2025.
David Behrman is a composer and artist active since the 1960s. Over the years he has made sound and multimedia installations for gallery spaces as well as musical compositions for performance in concerts. Most of his pieces feature flexible structures and the use of technology in personal ways; compositions rely on interactive real-time relationships with imaginative performers. Together with Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier and Gordon Mumma, Behrman founded the Sonic Arts Union in 1966. He had a long association with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as composer and performer, created music for several of the Company’s repertory pieces, and was a member of the Company’s Music Committee during its last years. Pictures, with its music Interspecies Smalltalk, won the Olivier Award in 1985. It remained in the Merce Cunningham Dance Company repertory from 1984 to 1989, and was revived in 2002. Behrman has received grants from the NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, the Japan-United States Friendship Commission, the D.A.A.D., the Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Henry Cowell Foundation. He was a fellow at the American Academy in Berlin in 2016. Audio recordings of his works are on the XI, Lovely Music, Pogus, New World, WERGO, Black Truffle Records and Alga Marghen labels.
