Past Events

Rena Anakwe opens her 2019 residency with “The Cosmology of Water,” an immersive ritual that contemplates the pluralities that water holds as a molecular component of life, as a sacred space, and, at times, a site of destruction. Anakwe submerses attendees into a world of sound, scent, movement, lighting+projections.

French composer Christine Groult's work is performed in the U.S. for the first time. A major figure in the development of musique concrète, Groult remains an underrepresented voice despite her significant contributions to the field of electroacoustic music. Experimental sacred music duo ARIADNE also presents new work.

For her inaugural residency performance, 2019 Artist-In-Residence Charmaine Lee premieres “Laminals,” the first of three movements of a new long-form piece for solo voice. The program is paired with an improvised trio performance featuring id m theft able (voice, objects) and Andrea Pensado (voice, electronics).

ISSUE continues its Syncretics Series with acclaimed composer and performer Hprizm performing PRESSURE WAVE, an evening length audio/visual piece. Saxophonist, bass clarinetist, and creative musician Josh Sinton also presents krasa, exploring the sound magnification of the contrabass clarinet.

ISSUE presents artist and electronics visionary Mark Fell, returning to ISSUE for the first time since 2015 to premiere an untitled new piece with cellist, composer, and improviser Okkyung Lee. The evening also features Kara-Lis Coverdale and LXV, collaborators on joint album Sirens, each presenting new solo work.

ISSUE presents composers & instrumentalists Daniel Fishkin, Cleek Schrey, and Ron Shalom -- the U.S.'s only extant daxophone consort. At ISSUE, the group collaborates with experimental vocalist and composer Judith Berkson. The concert features the premiere of a new commission, HARD WOOD, by Alvin Lucier.

Multimedia artist and experimental hodgepodge-ist Ying Liu opens her 2019 residency with the premiere of PLAYDATE, an outdoor play and hyper-cellphone oriented performance combining theater and happenings, exploring themes of urban interconnectivity.

Queer Trash is thrilled to present Madsen Minax, Max Hamel, and Reagan Holiday for an evening of gender blur, noise, abstraction, and intimate electricity. Returning to ISSUE following their 2018 Curatorial Fellowship, Queer Trash presents a varied night of drag, noise, and video.

Lindsay Packer premieres DEPTH OF FIELD, her first commissioned work as an ISSUE Artist-In-Residence. Collaborating with dancer and choreographer Melanie Maar, the artists use light, color, repetition, movement & the reverberations that emanate from their movements to define and redefine the space around them.

David Watson performs on the Great Highland Bagpipe and Scottish smallpipes in collaboration with renowned percussionist Tony Buck. Multidisciplinary artist Laura Ortman also presents new work for violin, incorporating over-rosining and heavy use of amplification in her scored and improvised works.

American musicians Jeff Witscher & Jack Callahan premiere new collaborative and solo work. Known for their discrete compositions and far-ranging work under various monikers, recently both have been using primary descriptors such as “Music Art” and “Sound Music” to re-assert the simplicity of their practices.

Japanese quartet SAICOBAB gives their NYC debut, consisting of vocalist YoshimiO of Boredoms/OOIOO and instrumentalists Yoshida Daikiti and Motoyuki "Hama" Hamamoto. The evening also features Lizzi Bougatsos & Sadie Laksa’s I.U.D. project, embedding an eccentric dub modality into industrial music.