Frankie Mann with David Behrman, Allison Easter, Sarah Hennies & John King

Saturday, September 7th, at 8pm ISSUE welcomes an elusive performer to open its Fall 2024 Season. After more than 20 years, American composer Frankie Mann will make her return to New York at the First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn. After last performing at Roulette Intermedium in 2000, she will be accompanied for this landmark occasion by longtime collaborator David Behrman, Sarah Hennies and John King to present Descent, a new work for traditional acoustic and electronic instruments and soundscapes, and Songs: 3+3 with interdisciplinary artist Allison Easter. Contemplating the etymology of the word “descent,” the artists explore its meanings–who and where you come from; the sense of entropy in our society; a melodic downward turn–to imagine what it looks like to go beyond this seemingly inevitable, human fate. 

As with many women engineers, it is only recently that Frankie Mann is becoming recognized for her pioneering work in music and technology. She began her career in the 1970s when the shift from analog to digital technologies was quickly evolving, requiring Mann to (quite literally) write her way into the male dominated history of electronic music composition. Entering higher education at Oberlin Conservatory and later, what was once Mills College in California, the classically trained musician would go on to receive a Fulbright scholarship for her gifts in computer science and music despite the conservative nature of the emerging field. While much of Mann’s work has existed on the peripheries of history, this September, ISSUE brings forth a selection of her past works in conversation with present-day works and collaborators in celebration of the artist’s legacy.

Frankie Mann composes music for electronics, acoustic instruments and field recordings. Her music explores cultural memory, feminism, tech, and classical music. In high school, she became mesmerized with electronic music and learned how to build synthesizers from Popular Electronics. She studied classical piano and electronic music at Oberlin Conservatory, computer music at the Instituut voor Sonolgie in Utrecht, NL (Fulbright fellowship), and composition at Mills College with David Behrman and Robert Ashley. She ran a new music radio show “Blank Spot Punch” with Henry Kaiser at KPFA-FM in Berkeley, CA. Frankie lived in New York from the late-1970s to the mid-1990s, where she played music and wrote audio software for Eventide Clockworks, Atari, Children's Computer Workshop, and The New York Hall of Science. Her work has been featured at Roulette Intermedium, The Whitney Museum of American Art, The Museum of Modern Art, Festival d'Automne, and other venues.

Sarah Hennies is a composer based in Upstate NY whose work is concerned with a variety of musical, sociopolitical, and psychological issues including queer and trans identity, psychoacoustics, and the social and neurological conditions underlying creative thought. She is primarily a composer of acoustic ensemble music, but is also active in improvisation, film, and performance art. She presents her work internationally as both a composer and percussionist with notable performances at MoMA PS1 (NYC), Monday Evening Concerts (Los Angeles), Le Guess Who (Utrecht), Festival Cable (Nantes), send + receive (Winnipeg), O’ Art Space (Milan), Cafe Oto (London), ALICE (Copenhagen), and the Edition Festival (Stockholm). As a composer, she has worked with a wide array of performers and ensembles including Bearthoven, Bent Duo, Claire Chase, ensemble 0, Judith Hamann, R. Andrew Lee, The Living Earth Show, Talea Ensemble, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Two-Way Street, Nate Wooley, and Yarn/Wire. Her groundbreaking audio-visual work Contralto (2017) explores transfeminine identity through the elements of “voice feminization” therapy, featuring a cast of transgender women accompanied by a dense and varied musical score for string quartet and three percussionists. The work has been in high demand since its acclaimed premiere at ISSUE Project Room in 2017, with numerous performances taking place around North America, Europe, and Australia and was one of four finalists for the 2019 Queer|Art Prize. As a scholar and performer she is engaged with ongoing research about the percussion music of Iannis Xenakis and a recording project to document music by the American percussionist and composer Michael Ranta. Hennies is currently a Visiting Assistant Professor of Music at Bard College. She is also an ISSUE Artistic Advisory Council Member, and has worked with the organization over a number of years.

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 exible 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. 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, and Alga Marghen labels.

Allison Easter is a NYC based interdisciplinary artist whose performing career ranges from the Obie-winning percussion show Stomp to dancing in the companies of Ann Carlson, Jane Comfort, Amy Pivar and with Susan Marshall and Dancers (highlights include dancing at the NY State Theater and being featured in Tobi Tobias’ article “Breathtaking Performances of 1994”). She has spent over 35 years as a singer and performer with Meredith Monk, receiving a Bessie (Downtown Dance and Performance Award) for The Politics of Quiet and creating a role in the 2021 premiere of Indra’s Net. She has staged Meredith Monk’s work internationally and throughout the US, directed and written her own work for stage and video, and taught at numerous colleges and universities, including Sarah Lawrence (where she received her BA), Marymount Manhattan, NYU's Tisch School of the Arts, Pace University and Bank Street College of Education. She teaches regularly in Ms. Monk’s Dancing Voice/Singing Body workshops, both online and in person, guiding participants from around the globe in extended vocal techniques and in creating their own voice/movement/theater work.

John King, composer, guitarist and violist, has received commissions from the Kronos Quartet; Ethel; the Albany Symphony/“Dogs of Desire”, Bang On A Can All-Stars; Mannheim Ballet; New York City Ballet/Diamond Project, Stuttgart Ballet, Ballets de Monte Carlo; as well as the Merce Cunningham Dance Co. His string quartets have also been performed by the Eclipse Quartet (LA) and the Mondriaan Quartet (Amsterdam), in addition to The Secret Quartet which has premiered many of his compositions including from his ongoing series “Free Palestine” at The Stone (June 2007, May 2015), The Kitchen (April 2009), Lincoln Center Festival (July 2011); and Roulette (Oct. 2019).