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, Allison Easter, Sarah Hennies and John King to present Descent, a new work for traditional acoustic and electronic instruments and soundscapes. 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.Join as an ISSUE Project Room Member at any level and receive a free ticket to the event!
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 Fullbright 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.
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.