David Behrman & Fast Forward: Open Space with Fast

Wednesday, September 24th at 8pm, as part of Celebrating David Behrman—a Fall series honoring the groundbreaking composer and 2025 ISSUE Gala honoree—ISSUE Project Room presents an evening of performances that illuminate Behrman’s enduring legacy of collaboration, technological innovation, and influence across generations of experimental music. The program features two works: Runthrough (1967–), originally developed with the Sonic Arts Union and performed on this occasion by friends of ISSUE, Frankie Mann with Daniel Fishkin & Cleek Schrey; and Open Space with Fast (2020–), a richly textural collaboration between David Behrman and artistic partner Fast Forward.

Open Space with Fast grew out of Behrman’s extensive work history with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company, specifically a 2020 remote collaboration with over 60 former members of the MCDC—produced during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as a video gift for Jasper Johns’ 90th birthday. Composed of solitary audio and video contributions, the project reflected a deeply collaborative spirit despite global pandemic restrictions. Elements from Behrman’s contribution to that work later found their way to an installation with Bob Bielecki for Harvestworks and a string quartet/electronics piece presented at a 2024 Berlin festival honoring Alvin Lucier.

In Open Space with Fast, percussionist and composer Fast Forward activates a constellation of unconventional objects and resonant materials, improvising within a dynamic electronic environment shaped by Behrman’s sound materials. This performance reflects their decades-long dialogue around technology, listening, and shared experimentation. 

Frankie Mann and Fast Forward were among the gifted young artists who worked with Behrman at the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills in the 1970s. That innovative, path-breaking program was directed by Robert Ashley. Daniel Fishkin and Cleek Schrey began collaborating with Behrman after participating together at another vital experimental music hub—Wesleyan’s graduate music program headed by Ron Kuivila.

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.

Fast Forward is a UK/US composer and musician known for creating bold, genre-defying works that merge experimental music with live performance. He studied music at Mills College with David Behrman and Robert Ashley (1976–78). His work embraces non-traditional instrumentation and physical gesture—often blurring the lines between concert and theater. His live performances—solo or ensemble—turn everyday objects into instruments, revealing a tactile and visual musical language. His internationally acclaimed Feeding Frenzy—a “culinary concert” involving five musicians, five cooks, five waiters, and the audience—has been performed across Europe, China, and the U.S., including at the Museum for Contemporary Art in Berlin and Finland’s Time of Music Festival. He was a featured performer with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company under the musical direction of Takehisa Kosugi, and he directed and performed in Robert Ashley’s iconic opera That Morning Thing at The Kitchen. His music has been commissioned by Inventionen and DAAD (Berlin), the Whitney Museum (New York), soundpocket (Hong Kong), among many others. Residencies include DAAD (Berlin), the Asian Cultural Council (Japan), and the Emily Harvey Foundation (Venice).