DAVID BEHRMAN has been active as a composer and artist since the 1960's and has created many works for performance as well as sound installations Most of his work since the late seventies has involved computer-controlled music systems, operating interactively with people who may or may not be musically expert. He designs and writes much of the software for these systems.

My Dear Siegfried, Unforeseen Events, Refractive Light and Quick Silver are among Behrman's recent works for soloists and small ensembles which have been performed by musicians skilled at inventive performance. Among them recently have been Thomas Buckner, Leroy Jenkins, Barbara Held, "Blue" Gene Tyranny, Jon Gibson, Ralph Samuelson, Peter Zummo, Ben Neill and Kazue Sawai. Behrman performances have been presented during the past three years by the CBC in Toronto, Frizitaliana in Turin, Steim in Amsterdam, Metronom in Barcelona, the New Music Circle in St. Louis, Apollohuis in Eindhoven, Logos in Ghent and Roulette in New York.

Behrman's sound installations have been exhibited at various institutions, including the Whitney Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and La Villette Science and Technology Museum in Paris. Recordings of his works -- Leapday Night, On the Other Ocean, Interspecies Smalltalk, Figure in a Clearing, Navigation and Astronomy, Unforseen Events, and others -- are published as LPs and CDs by Lovely Records, XI, New Tone and Classic Masters. Together with Robert Ashley, Alvin Lucier and Gordon Mumma, Behrman founded the Sonic Arts Union in 1966. Sonic Arts performed extensively in North America and Europe from 1966 until 1976. Working at Columbia Records in the late 1960s, he produced the "Music of Our Time" series of new music recordings for Columbia Masterworks, which presented works by Cage, Oliveros, Riley, Pousseur and other influential composers.

Behrman toured as composer/performer with the Cunningham Dance Company from 1970 through 1976. During that period he assisted John Cage with several projects. Merce Cunningham commissioned him to compose music for Company repertory pieces in 1968, 1976 and 1984. Behrman was co-director of the Center for Contemporary Music at Mills College from 1975-1980. He also taught at Ohio State University, New Music in New Hampshire, Rutgers University and California Institute of the Arts. In the early eighties he designed educational music software as a consultant for Childrens' Television Workshop. He lived in Tokyo and Berlin from 1987-1989 under grants from the Japan-United States Friendship Commission and the D.A.A.D. He received grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts in 1995 and from NYFA in 1996.