Past Events

ISSUE commemorates the close of the 2017 season with a special year-end event with acclaimed composer and electronic musician Tyondai Braxton and extended technique vocalist, composer, and performer Like A Villain (Holland Andrews), co-presented with BOMB Magazine.

ISSUE is pleased to screen Brooklyn-born film pioneer Ken Jacobs’ 3D film A Primer in Sky Socialism, presented alongside the premiere of a film score by Aki Onda + performed live in collaboration with musician & writer Alan Licht. Baltimore-based pedal steel guitarist Susan Alcorn performs solo before the film.

Jeremy Toussaint-Baptiste completes his ISSUE residency in collaboration with LaMont Hamilton January 19th - 20th at The Kitchen. The performance features the duo sequentially performing all five of their previously staged “parts” of Julius Eastman’s 1979 composition “Evil Nigger” as a 24 hour interpretive cycle.

ISSUE is pleased to present Sarah Davachi and Gabi Losoncy performing new work. Their varying practices span Davachi’s disclosure of the delicate psychoacoustics of intimate aural space to Losoncy’s unlayered, utilitarian audio experiments -- both charting critical new contexts for composition & sound art.

Improviser, composer, and multi-instrumentalist Brandon Lopez opens his 2018 ISSUE residency with the premiere of Fairer Than Tongue, a solo piece for improviser in three movements. The evening also features a duo performance between Lopez and celebrated Detroit-born jazz drummer Gerald Cleaver.

Olivia Block, Drew McDowall, and Lea Bertucci perform site-responsive solo performances. Each artist observes an individual approach to presenting new work in ISSUE’s theater space, applying the room’s unique acoustics to inform their craft and independent performative methods.

ISSUE presents the debut of its new Syncretics Series, featuring solo and duo performances by artists at highest level of their craft curated by Chris McIntyre. The opening event features two of the most revered and sought-after pianists in the experimental improvisation scene, Craig Taborn and Kris Davis.

Our recently inaugurated Syncretics Series continues with Eric Wubbels, acclaimed composer, pianist, and co-director of the Wet Ink Ensemble, and Adam Tendler performing a repertoire of works from David Lang, Elodie Lauten, Frances White, and Tom Johnson.

February 24th, ISSUE presents Argentine acousmatic composer Beatriz Ferreyra and Obfuscation Morphologies, a new work by Eric Frye. Though they differ in generation, both composers employ kindred methods for orienting sonic surfaces with signature precision across electroacoustic and computer music.

Computer music pioneer Carl Stone, composer/performer Ned Rothenberg, and Tokyo-based vocalist Ami Yamasaki perform in an evening of overlapping improvisations. While Stone & Rothenberg have performed together previously in Japan over their 35 year-long friendship, this is their debut New York performance.

For their first program as 2018 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow, Queer Trash is delighted to present Brutal Measures (Lydia Lunch + Weasel Walter), Keijaun Thomas, and Straight Panic. Queer Trash cruises in relentless pursuit of bodily disruptions and sonic deviance against avant-normativity.

March 18th 2018, ISSUE hosts an interactive performance of the rhythmic game and composition Stridulations For The Good Luck Feast with Billy Martin, joined by TILT Brass and fellow musicians as a part of French Institute Alliance Française’s 2018 Tilt Kids Festival. Entry is $25 for a child with an accompanying adult.