Tom Mank and Sera Smolen have been performing and writing music together since 1994. Mank, a self-taught singer-songwriter, and Smolen, a conservatory trained cellist, blend their musical languages into an eclectic style. Guitar, voice, and cello have many ways of blending, with the cello as bass, and doubling with guitar or soloing. Mank’s eloquent writing of instrumentals is contrasted well with his poetic lyrics. Their newest CD, Unlock the Sky, will be released later in 2016.  Like their 3 previous CDs (Swimming in the Dark, Paper Kisses, and Where the Sun Meets the Blue), the new one was recorded primarily in Bearsville, NY, but also in Minneapolis, MN, Ithaca, NY, and in Belgium, with Ithaca, Woodstock, and European musicians and vocalists contributing.

Tom Mank, a US-based independent singer-songwriter for the past twenty years, has played in folk, blues, and bluegrass bands collaborating with a host of singers and instrumentalists in Boston, MA, Brattleboro, VT, Keene, NH, and Ithaca, NY. He currently performs with Smolen and many other musicians and continues to generate new music.

Dr. Sera Jane Smolen is an active performer of many genres of music, including four centuries of classical music. In addition to her collaboration with Mank, she has performed extensively with the Cayuga Chamber Orchestra, Albert Consort (New Violin Family), Tri-Cities Opera, Mansfield University Piano Trio, Ithaca Piano Trio, Trio Melange, Chiron Festival of the Creative Spirit, and Cornell University Hesterian Musicism. She has taught at Mansfield University, Alfred University, Hobart & William Smith, and Ithaca College. She is the assistant director of the New Directions Cello Festival, a founding member of the Binghamton Cello Festival, and a guest clinician around the US and Canada.