The Atlanta Audio Society has called him "a composer of serious music of considerable depth and spiritual beauty."
After early instruction in piano and violin, Manno had a brief career as a jazz pianist in Philadelphia, then studied voice with Dolores Ferraro and composition with Romeo Cascarino.
He moved to New York in 1965 studying jazz piano with John Mehegan and Steve Kuhn and voice with Cornelius Reid.
He later continued his composition studies at the 28th Annual Composers Conference in Johnson, VT with Donald Erb and Mario Davidovsky.
He and his wife, former MET violinist Magdalena Golczewski, reside in the Northern Catskills where they formed the Windham Chamber Music Festival, a concert series now in its thirteenth season.