Jesse Manno Oral History, 2023

Jesse Manno (BA Asian Studies, CU Boulder 1988) was born into a performing arts family in New York City and grew up there and in Colorado soaking up the music and dance worlds through his performing artist parents. He plays laptop, vocal cords, and a smattering of lutes, flutes, reeds, keyboard, and percussion instruments, often as a one-man band. He has been Music Director of the University of Colorado/Boulder Dance Program since 1991, and accompanist/composer in residence at the Bates Dance Festival almost every year since 1998. As a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist, he’s played for thousands of dance classes, and co-created hundreds of dance, theatre, circus art, site specific, and film projects with a great variety of collaborators, including Onye Ozuzu, David Dorfman, Michael Foley, Chris Aiken/Angie Hauser, Nancy Smith/Frequent Flyers, Lazer Vaudeville, David Taylor Dance Theatre, Turning The Wheel, Inc., and so many others. He and/or his work has been presented in venues from BAM to bust in all 50 states, as well as in several European and Asian countries. He joyously embraces all kinds of musical/sonic inspiration, but he is especially steeped in Balkan and Middle Eastern music, which he performs at festivals, weddings, and conferences with the Colorado based group SHEREFE.