Programs

ISSUE’s current programming includes 200 music, film, video, and performance programs each year featuring artists whose work embodies the highest spirit of artistic integrity and exploration. Since our start in 2003, we’ve produced more than 750 innovative artistic events reaching 50,000 people. Our programs continue to receive high praise from audiences, artists, and media such as ArtForum, the Brooklyn Rail, the New York Times, The New Yorker, Time Out New York, The Village Voice, WFMU, WNYC and more.

In addition to single events, ISSUE hosts more than a dozen thematic series throughout the year:

4 Masters (new program)
The 4 Masters program is a new month-long arts and education program which looks deep into the practice of 4 major composers and improvisers and provides audiences and students with the opportunity to witness the scope and versatility of these artists through intimate improvised concerts, novel collaborations, and master classes.

Artist In Residence (AIR)
ISSUE’s AIR program provides 3 emerging artists each year with a four-month residency in which each artist can express the range of his or her work through four public performances. We also pair AIRs with established artists and arts writers in their fields so that they exit our program with a new understanding of themselves as important contributors to the artistic community.

Chamber Music
This series, created in 2005, investigates areas of musical exploration that have yet to reach mainstream institutions and highlights 30 defining figures in today’s chamber music performance who are creating unconventional contexts for the classics.

Darmstadt “…one of the most significant musical presentations of the season.” - TimeOut NY
Building on the success of 2008’s Week of Darmstadt ‘Essential Repertoire of the Avant-Garde’ as well as its growing acclaim since its start in 2004, Darmdstadt co-curators Zach Layton and Nick Hallett will expand the program at ISSUE to include lectures, workshops and master classes in addition to performances featuring over 24 artists whose works embody the vibrant spirit of the Avant-Garde movement in 20^th and 21^st century music.

Experimental Film & Video Screenings
Building on the success of 2008’s Women’s Experimental Cinema week and the popularity of ISSUE’s regular presentation of innovative video, ISSUE will expand the program to host a month of experimental narrative and non-narrative film featuring over 60 artists working in film and others whose use of video and computer technology is bringing the art form to new levels.

Floating Points
Since 2005, the annual Floating Points series features over 20 established and emerging composers, and sound artists performing site-specific pieces using sound spatialization as a composition element for ISSUE’s unique 16-channel hemispherical sound system designed by Stephan Moore.

The Independents

Since 2005, this annual series has showcased more than 50 independent artists from the nation’s most prestigious independent record labels through a month-long festival. In 2008, the program began to include independent film and video and in 2009 will expand to include independent publishers.

Littoral Series
Co-curated by ISSUE’s Founder and Artistic Director Suzanne Fiol and writer Tony Antoniadis, Littoral pairs 12 of today’s most compelling writers with 12 of today’s most innovative musicians and video artists. In the series, artists and audiences come together and discover how fiction, poetry, music and video can be redefined and reinvigorated through spirited mixed medium performances.

MATA (bi-monthly series)
In 2007, ISSUE and MATA developed MATA Interval, a bi-monthly series developed and produced by young participants in MATA’s Curatorial Associate program, which features emerging composers and performers using software instruments, using video as a parallel practice, and rethinking the notion of chamber ensemble in the digital age to map areas where the traditional and the experimental coexist.

Theremin Society
Since 2005, Suzanne Fiol and Dorit Chrysler have co-curated this month-long series to focus on dozens of artists from a wide range of genres who have devoted their careers to the Theremin, the worlds’ first electronic musical instrument, and who are redefining its role in 21st century musical culture.

Unlikely Couplings
Unlikely Couplings began in 2006 and pairs artists from disparate branches of new music to create new languages and new inspiration.

WFMU Collaborative Concerts
This program began in 2008, and features a month of weekend concerts co-curated by WFMU DJs and which were then broadcast on the legendary independent free-form radio station.

You can support continued programming by making a fully tax-deductible donation or by becoming a member.