"...ringing, resounding music, full of life..." -Cadence Magazine
"...really in a great direction! Great to hear." -John Abercrombie
Born in Brooklyn, New York, guitarist Terrence McManus grew up in New Jersey and Connecticut. He has performed with John Zorn, Bill Frisell, Tim Berne, Ellery Eskelin, Herb Robertson, Mark Helias, Gerry Hemingway, Anthony Cox, Kermit Driscoll, Russ Lossing, Marty Ehrlich, Mat Maneri, Billy Mintz, Michael Sarin, and Gene Bertoncini. He has performed at Carnegie Hall, the New York Guitar Festival, Ellis Island, and the inaugural month at John Zorn's The Stone. In 2006, Terrence formed Flattened Planet, a record label dedicated to the promotion of new, creative, and improvised music.
Terrence is currently a member of the Gerry Hemingway Quintet, the Kermit Driscoll Group, the Herb Robertson Ensemble, and the Hemingway/McManus Duo. His own projects include The Wealthy Industrialists, with Tim Berne, Herb Robertson, Mark Helias, and Gerry Hemingway; Transcendental Numbers, with Mark Helias, and Gerry Hemingway; and the chamber ensemble The Dream of the Ants, with Ellery Eskelin and Gerry Hemingway. The Dream of the Ants recently premiered a new sixty minute, multi-sectional, through-composed work entitled, The Machine. The piece has also been performed in an expanded quintet configuration, adding Russ Lossing and Mat Maneri, and in a solo guitar setting.
An accomplished solo guitarist, Terrence performs his own compositions and arrangements, and has developed a unique style of improvisation, drawing on extended technique and prepared guitar. In 2009 he was invited to perform in the 5th annual Electro-Music Festival, and that same year did solo tour of California, with concerts in San Francisco, Berkeley, Monterey, and San Diego. Terrence's solo improvisations were featured in the New York City debut of the Fermin Cabal play Disappeared (Tejas Verdes). The play's month long residency took place at the Richmond Shepard Theatre in September, 2006.
In 2008 Terrence was featured in the book, State of the Axe: Guitar Masters in Photographs and Words, by legendary photographer Ralph Gibson. The book, published by Yale University Press, was produced in conjunction with The Museum of Fine Arts, in Houston, TX, where the book's images were on exhibition.
Also actively involved in education, Terrence has taught at William Paterson University, the University of Nebraska, and The New School in New York City.
_______________________________________________________