Benna

Born and raised in Elmhurst and named for her maternal Maltese grandfather, Benna grew up as the sole child of a real-estate father and a mother devoted to performance. Both parents appeared regularly in community theater and urged their daughter toward the stage as well, so she took up piano and acting; those pursuits helped shape her inner life. The household’s relocation to nearby Hartsdale coincided with the start of junior high, abruptly ending her daydreams. Adolescent cliques triggered familiar self-doubt, and the teasing Benna endured over her unconventional clothes prompted her to lose herself in art, singing lessons, tennis, dance, and acting classes. Summers spent in Malta furthered her musical development: there she cultivated her wispy, honeyed voice and began playing guitar. The Runaways, Emmylou Harris, the Roches, and Rickie Lee Jones accompanied her into college, where she honed her skills as a writer of non-fiction, poetry, and prose. Short periods of acting in London and Manhattan, along with classes taken from Julie Bovasso, occupied her briefly until a move to the East Village finally prompted her to foreground her own songs.

During the early 1990s, Sin-e served as a key venue for emerging singer-songwriters, among them Jeff Buckley, Sarah McLachlan, and Paula Cole. Benna regarded the club as a refuge where she at last felt at home. With support from her friend Judson Wright she recorded a self-produced demo just as grunge dominated commercial radio; the lo-fi Tunnel Songs moved briskly at local gigs, drawing favorable notice from CMJ and The Village Voice and establishing her within the indie underground. Evil Teen released Greetings from Port Authority in 1996, an album whose lush portraits evoked the New York she cherished. North American tours carried her work into the new millennium. In 2003 she issued What’s Meant to Be, her most accomplished recording to that point.