Celebrating David Behrman: In Conversation with R. Luke DuBois

Tuesday, September 30th at 12pm, ISSUE Project Room releases an exclusive conversation between David Behrman and American composer and new media artist R. Luke DuBois ahead of ISSUE’s 2025 Gala honoring Behrman’s legacy of collaboration, technological innovation, and influence across generations of experimental music.

Recorded at NYU’s Tandon School of Engineering, the conversation finds DuBois—also a member of ISSUE’s Board of Directors—speaking with Behrman about his formative years in the American and European experimental music scenes, the early days of electronic composition, and his enduring commitment to open-ended, collaborative creation. From studying with Stockhausen in the 1950s, to co-developing analog synthesizers and homemade audio circuits with artists like Bob Watts and Gordon Mumma, Behrman reflects on the personal and technical relationships that shaped his singular musical approach.

This digital release precedes a live concert on Friday, October 3rd at ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Pl. theater, including a performance of Behrman’s On the Other Ocean. The evening features appearances by John King, Aliya Ultan, Ben Neill, and Behrman himself.  

For more information and tickets to ISSUE’s 2025 Gala celebration please contact ISSUE's Director of Advancement & Administration, Monica Pabelonio at monica@issueprojectroom.org, or visit our website. If you can’t attend, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution. A gift of any size helps to support our programs and community of underserved artists. 

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.

R. Luke DuBois creates music, art, software, and circuits, not necessarily in that order. His artwork explores the temporal, verbal, and visual structures of cultural and personal ephemera, using data-driven techniques to investigate time, memory, identity, and the meaning of portraiture in the United States in the 21st Century. He is the co-chair of the department of Technology, Culture, and Society and research director of the programs in Integrated Design & Media at the NYU Tandon School of Engineering, and a founding co-director of the NYU Ability Project. His research focuses on integrative systems for media and technology equity, ranging from open source software projects for signal processing and speech to telepresent communication systems for motion capture to citizen science for noise pollution to design for disability. His work has received support from the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts. He is on the Board of Directors at ISSUE Project Room, Eyebeam, and Tech Kids Unlimited.