[4] Mann began his study of the violin at age nine; at 13, he was accepted into the class of Edouard Hurlimann, concertmaster of the Portland Symphony.

[3] In 1938, at the age of eighteen, he moved to New York City to enroll in the Juilliard School, where he studied violin with Edouard Dethier, composition with Bernard Wagenaar and Stefan Wolpe, and conducting with Edgar Schenkman.

Mann won the prestigious Naumburg Competition in 1941 and made his New York debut two days after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[3] The quartet, which celebrated its golden jubilee during the 1996–97 season, had played approximately 5,000 concerts and performed more than 600 works, including some 100 premieres.

Mann composed more than 30 works for narrator with various instruments that he performed with his wife, the actress Lucy Rowan; several have been recorded on the Musical Heritage label.

He also composed a Fantasy for Orchestra performed by Dimitri Mitropoulos with the New York Philharmonic, the Vienna Philharmonic, and at the Salzburg Festival; a Duo for Violin and Piano premiered at Carnegie Hall by Itzhak Perlman and Samuel Sanders; and a string quartet included in the repertoires of both the La Salle and the Concord string quartets.

Among his students were Juliette Kang, who won the Indianapolis International Violin Competition in 1994,[5] and Mark Steinberg, the first violinist of the Brentano String Quartet.