Sarah Hennies

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Sarah Hennies
Born1979 (age 44–45)
Louisville, Kentucky
OriginIthaca, New York
Genres
Instruments
Years active1993–present
Labels
Websitehttps://www.sarah-hennies.com/

Sarah Hennies (born 1979) is an American composer and percussionist. She is known for her work as an acoustic group composer. She also contributes to improvisation, film, and performance art.[1] She is currently a visiting assistant professor of music at Bard College.

Life and career[edit]

Hennies was born in 1979, in Louisville, Kentucky. She began playing drums when she was nine years old, and as a teenager she started playing drums with local college punk rock bands.[2] She attended the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where she studied under Stuart Saunders Smith, Herbert Brün, and William Moersch.[3][4] She then received a master's degree from the University of California, San Diego, where she studied under Steven Schick.[5] Later, she moved to Ithaca, New York.[6][7][8]

After her graduation from UC San Diego, Hennies relocated to Austin, Texas, in 2003, and started collaborating with the guitarist Aaron Russell in the group Weird Weeds. In 2013, she founded her own record label, Weighter Recordings. Some of the musicians and ensembles with whom she has collaborated as a composer include Bearthoven, Bent Duo, Claire Chase, R. Andrew Lee, Talea Ensemble, Thin Edge New Music Collective, Two-Way Street, Nate Wooley, and Yarn/Wire. She is also a member of the music trio Meridian.[6][9][7][10]

Hennies went through a gender transition in 2015 and much of her artwork reflects some aspects of her experience as a transgender woman.[6] Her audio-visual work Contralto was premiered in 2017, featuring transfeminine identity issues[6][11][12] and was nominated for the Queer|Art Prize in 2019.[13]

Awards[edit]

Hennies is the recipient of an Artist Fellowship from New York Foundation for the Arts (2016), the Grants to Artists Award (2019) from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts.[14], and a 2024 United States Artists Fellowship.[15] In 2022, she was one of 14 American composers to receive a commission from the Fromm Music Foundation at Harvard University.[16]

Works[edit]

Singles, extended plays and albums[edit]

Title Details
Flourish
  • Released: 2013
  • Label: Consumer Waste
  • Format: CD
Clots
  • Released: 2014
  • Label: Weighter Recordings
  • Format: DVD
Work
  • Released: 2014
  • Label: Quakebasket
  • Format: CD
Everything Else[17]
  • Released: 2016
  • Label: No Rent Records
  • Format: Cassette
Gather & Release[18]
  • Released: 2016
  • Label: Category of manifestation
  • Format: CD
Reservoir 1: Preservation (with Philip Bush & Meridian)[10]
  • Released: 2018
  • Label: Black Truffle
  • Formats: CD
The Reinvention of Romance[19]
Extra Time
  • Released: 2020
  • Label: Hasana Editions
  • Formats: CD
Spectral Malsconcities (with Bearthoven & Bent Duo)

Films[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Andor Brodeur, Michael (January 22, 2022). "22 for '22: Composers and performers to watch this year". The Washington Post.
  2. ^ "Queer Percussion". Sound American. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  3. ^ "Tone Glow 032.2: Sarah Hennies". 22 September 2020.
  4. ^ "Edition manifold | nicholas hennies". Archived from the original on 2002-09-03.
  5. ^ "Edition manifold | nicholas hennies". Archived from the original on 2002-09-03.
  6. ^ a b c d Smith, Steve (October 15, 2020). "Sharing an Intimate Musical Vision". The New York Times.
  7. ^ a b Storring, Nick. "Sarah Hennies, Linguist in the Land of Noises". MusicWorks Magazine. Retrieved 4 June 2022.
  8. ^ Saavedra, Chloe. "Composer and percussionist Sarah Hennies doesn't think you should assume things are simple". Tom Tom Magazine. Retrieved 5 June 2022.
  9. ^ "Listen to Bent Duo featuring Sarah Hennies". The Wire. No. May 2018.
  10. ^ a b Cardew, Ben (September 30, 2019). "Reservoir 1: Preservation". Pitchfork.
  11. ^ a b Dixon Evans, Julia (March 23, 2021). "Sarah Hennies' 'Contralto' Lets Women's Voices Be". kpbs.
  12. ^ Tynes, Jayde (May 25, 2018). "Film exploring transgender women's voices makes debut in Halifax". CBC News.
  13. ^ "2019 RECENT WORK FINALISTS". Queer-Art. Retrieved 2 June 2022.
  14. ^ Selvin, Claire (January 23, 2019). "Foundation for Contemporary Arts Names 2019 Grants to Artists, Including Tania Bruguera, Trisha Donnelly". ART news.
  15. ^ "United States Artists announces 2024 USA Fellows". Philanthropy News Digest. January 24, 2024.
  16. ^ "The Fromm Music Foundation Announces 2022 Commission Recipients, Prize Winners, and Project Grant Recipients". frommfoundation.fas.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2023-04-14.
  17. ^ Thomas, Nathan. "Sarah Hennies – Everything Else". Fluid Radio. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  18. ^ Storring, Nick. "Sarah Hennies. Gather & Release". MusicWorks. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
  19. ^ Williger, Jonathan (September 25, 2020). "The Reinvention of Romance- Sarah Hennies". Pitchfork.
  20. ^ "Sarah Hennies: Getting at the Heart of a Sound". NewMusic. Retrieved 6 June 2022.
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