Sarah Hennies

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. 

From who and where do we descend? This thematic question finds resonance with the work of Sarah Hennies. Alongside Mann’s explorations of lived experience, Hennies often examines sonic peripheries through her study of psychoacoustics and queer and trans identity, and the messy, perhaps biological entanglement from which our curiosities and identities are formed. The artist’s work spans many years with ISSUE across disciplines including film and composition, and for this event, she will open the evening by working with difference tones for solo bowed vibraphone before joining Mann, Behrman, Easter and King.   

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.