Chris Mann (March 9, 1949 Australia–September 12, 2018 New York NY) was an Australian

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral or writte ...

and

performer The performing arts are The arts, arts such as music, dance, and drama which are performed for an audience. They are different from the visual arts, which are the use of paint, canvas or various materials to create physical or static art object ...

specializing in the emerging field of compositional linguistics, coined by

Kenneth Gaburo Kenneth Louis Gaburo (July 5, 1926 – January 26, 1993) was an American composer. Life Gaburo was born in Somerville, New Jersey. He served as a professor of music at the University of Illinois, the University of California, San Diego, and the Un ...

and described by Mann as "the mechanism whereby you understand what I'm saying better than I do". He was, in the last 2 decades of his life, based in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

. Mann studied

Chinese Chinese can refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation ** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...

and

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguis ...

at the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

, and his interest in language, systems, and philosophy is evident in his work. Mann founded the New Music Centre in 1972 and taught at the State College of Victoria in the mid-1970s. He then left teaching to work on research projects involving cultural ideas of

information theory Information theory is the scientific study of the quantification (science), quantification, computer data storage, storage, and telecommunication, communication of information. The field was originally established by the works of Harry Nyquist a ...

and has been recognized by

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

for his work in that field. Mann moved to New York in the 1980s and was an associate of American composers

John Cage John Milton Cage Jr. (September 5, 1912 – August 12, 1992) was an American composer and music theorist. A pioneer of indeterminacy in music, electroacoustic music, and non-standard use of musical instruments, Cage was one of the leading fi ...

and

. He performed text in collaboration with artists such as

Thomas Buckner Thomas Buckner (born 1941) is an American baritone vocalist specializing in the performance of contemporary classical music and improvised music. In his work, he utilizes a wide range of extended (non-traditional) vocal techniques. Buckner als ...

David Dunn David John Ian Dunn (born 27 December 1979) is an English former professional football player and manager; he is now a coach at club Port Vale. Dunn played as an attacking midfielder and spent the majority of his playing career representing ...

Annea Lockwood Annea Lockwood (born July 29, 1939, in Christchurch, New Zealand) is a New Zealand-born American composer and academic musician. She taught electronic music at Vassar College. Her work often involves recordings of natural Musique concrète, found ...

Larry Polansky Larry Polansky (born 1954) is a composer, guitarist, mandolinist, and professor emeritus at Dartmouth College and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a founding member and co-director of Frog Peak Music (a composers' collective) He c ...

, and

Robert Rauschenberg Milton Ernest "Robert" Rauschenberg (October 22, 1925 – May 12, 2008) was an American painter and graphic artist whose early works anticipated the Pop art movement. Rauschenberg is well known for his Combines (1954–1964), a group of artwor ...

. Mann recorded with the ensemble Machine For Making Sense with Amanda Stewart,

Rik Rue Rik Rue (born Richard Banachowicz)Jon Rose and contributors, "Rik Rue, Sound Collagist" http://www.realtime.org.au/rik-rue-sound-collagist/, retrieved 14 June 2017 is an Australian experimental musician, and sound artist, known for his audio coll ...

and others, Chris Mann and the Impediments (with two backup singers and Mann reading a text simultaneously while only being able to hear one another), and Chris Mann and The Use. His piece ''The Plato Songs'', a collaboration with Holland Hopson and R. Luke DuBois, features realtime spectral analysis and parsing of the voice into multiple channels based on

phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-west o ...

s. Mann has also participated in the

60x60 60x60 is a collection of 60 electroacoustic or acousmatic works from 60 different composers/artists, each work 60 seconds or less in duration. 60x60 project showcases sixty new works, each sixty seconds or less, by sixty composers in a continuous ...

project. Mann taught in the Media Studies Graduate program at

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

. He died in September 2018 after a recurrence of cancer. He is survived by his wife and two children.

Articles and reviews

Artist Chris Mann to vocalize his new work to St. Cloud by Tim Post, Minnesota Public Radio 1 April 2005http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/2005/04/01_postt_mann/ Minnesota Public Radio

Publications

*Words & Classes, Outback Press, Melbourne 1978. *doin 2s, phon'm, Melbourne 1982 and Artelec, Paris 1983. *Word for word, Christine, New York 1983. *Subjective beats metaphor, NMA, Melbourne 1985. *LA DE DA, collective effort, Melbourne 1985. *The Rationales, NMA/post neo, Melbourne 1986. *da-dum, Glass Box/WA, Melbourne 1987. *of course, collective effort, Melbourne 1988. *Tuesday, collective effort, Melbourne 1989. *Birth of Peace, NMA, Melbourne 1990. *38'37" A Machine for Making Sense, NMA, Melbourne 1990. *Chris Mann and Grammar, Lingua, Iowa City 1991. *On second thoughts, Tall Poppies, Sydney 1994 and OO Discs, New York 1994. *Chris Mann and the Impediments, OO Discs, New York 1995. *62 Composers on Chris Mann, Frog Peak, Hanover 1997. *Talk is cheap, split, Sydney 1997. *Working hypothesis, Station Hill, Barrytown 1998. *Consciousness, split, Sydney 1999. *chris mann and the use, Lovely Music, Ltd. CD 3091, 2002 *Of Course (newsprint); The Rationales (pad, from NMA Publications); *Tuesday (pamphlet); *"I got ten bucks says Barrabas had a dad. . ." (ribbon); *"fee fie form odds is on. . ."(postcard) *Tablecloth. *Word for Word. *Chris Mann and Grammar. (Lingua Press). *Frog Peak Anthology. Writings by Harrison, Mann, Wendt, and others, edited by Carter Scholz. Frog Peak Publication. *Working Hypothesis. *How Do You Know That. Guppy Vol. I, No. 3: Text. . *010011.net (Machine for Making Sense) Jewish Museum, New York 2013
website

Discography

*Frog Peak Collaborations Project *60x60 (2006–2007) *Talking about Healesville. Man04. *The Birth of Peace. Multimedia work for goldfish-controlled computers and poets; Comes with book, ring and plastic fish.

Notes

External links

'unAustralian English'
by Oscar Schwartz
''Cordite Poetry Review''

Home Page
(includes mp3s of work)

{{DEFAULTSORT:Mann, Chris 1949 births Australian male composers Australian composers Place of death missing Musicians from Melbourne Place of birth missing 2018 deaths