Saturday, October 7th from 8-10pm, ISSUE celebrates its 20th Anniversary at our 22 Boerum Pl. theater with projections of Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room, recorded for his 90th Birthday Celebration, presented by ISSUE in May 2021. The evening includes versions of Lucier’s paradigmatic 1969 work I am sitting in a room from Joan La Barbara, Abigail Levine & James McNew all created during isolated stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, plus Lucier himself recorded live at ISSUE’s Boerum theater in 2017. The evening will also feature a panel conversation with La Barbara, Levine and McNew focusing on their presentations and Lucier’s legacy, moderated by James Fei.
Spanning more than 27 hours, Alvin Lucier’s 90th Birthday Celebration presented May 13-14, 2021 featured 90 artists staging their own performances of Lucier’s I am sitting in a room, a piece that took on new connotations within the global conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The marathon stream, which started at 8pm on his birthday eve and ran throughout Lucier's birthday, celebrated the occasion and commemorated this important milestone. Alvin specifically chose a select group of people who meant a great deal to him over the years.
Alvin Lucier passed on December 1st, 2021. On Sunday, June 19th, 2022, The Stokes-Lucier family and ISSUE Project Room hosted a memorial that was live streamed featuring speeches from Alvin’s family and friends including Wendy Stokes & Amanda Lucier, David Behrman, Susan Foster, and James Fei as well as performances of his work from Charles Curtis and the Ever Present Orchestra including Vespers, Three Cardboard Boxes, and I am sitting in a room. The memorial remains available for viewing at issueprojectroom.org
His Birthday Celebration and this redux is a letter to the artist from his peers, friends, and artists inspired by his work. ISSUE is proud to continue celebrating Alvin, his legacy, and ongoing influence in experimental music.
The showing on the evening of Saturday October 7th will include a panel conversation at 8pm with four artists who were commissioned as part of Lucier’s 90th Birthday celebration: Joan La Barbara (2006 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence), Abigail Levine, James McNew, moderated by James Fei.
SCHEDULE
8:00pm - Alvin Lucier, ISSUE Project Room, 2017
8:20pm - Panel conversation
9:10pm - Abigail Levine
9:20pm - James McNew
9:40pm - Joan La Barbara
Between Friday, Sep 29th and Saturday, Oct 7th, ISSUE invites audiences to experience presentations of works - originally commissioned for online distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic - at the 22 Boerum Pl. theater. The commissioned work will be shown as projected installations, coupled with a variety of artist talks, for a limited capacity environment of 74 people.
In response to our suspension of in-person programming during the onset of the pandemic, ISSUE commissioned more than 250 artists to present free online programs through series such as: Isolated Field Recordings; The Steve Circuit; Heroes Are Gang Leaders; Distant Pairs; With Womens Work; and 90 presentations of Alvin Lucier’s I am sitting in a room amongst others. Our commitment to support these artists mattered more than ever during the pandemic given the challenges that artists and many small cultural organizations across NYC experienced and still currently face. ISSUE is pleased to present these works as installed projections for audiences to experience in person, in ISSUE’s home theater, gathering with our community in celebration of the organization’s 20th Anniversary.
These initiatives complemented ISSUE’s work publishing archival documentation on online platforms currently collected and streamable on our expansive Archive page on the ISSUE website. ISSUE currently maintains a publicly accessible archive of hundreds of published video and audio recordings. These materials are a freely accessible collection of performance documentation that spans our recent and historic work.
During these presentations Laurie Berg’s (Sports) Bar-In-Residence will be activated as well as a lobby installation by Eva Davidova: Vinson and Catherine in the Garden, a series of augmented reality prints.
This Fall marks the 20th Anniversary of ISSUE and will be celebrated with a series of commissioned programs, orbiting around our annual Gala and affiliated Benefit events. During the Anniversary celebration, between phases of renovation, ISSUE returns to our 22 Boerum Pl. theater for a special series of twenty limited-capacity events. Featuring artists from across our history as well as new projects, these gatherings - including our 20th Anniversary Gala - present an opportunity to celebrate and support ISSUE as we continue an ambitious calendar of programming. Join us in recognizing this important milestone in our history.
These gatherings are free with RSVP, and members retain exclusive access to all limited-capacity events until sold out.
Panelist Bios
Joan La Barbara is a composer, performer, sound artist, and actor renowned for her unique vocabulary of experimental and extended vocal techniques, influencing generations of composers and singers. La Barbara's recent work for voice, chamber ensemble and fixed media "Ears of an Eagle; Eyes of a Hawk: In the Vortex" commissioned by the New York Philharmonic, uses as its text the names of women of color who have long been missing from the history of the suffragist movement and places the audience in the center of a swirling surround soundscape (premiered February 10, 2020 in the Appel Room, Jazz @ Lincoln Center). Joan has been singing Alvin Lucier's music since 1972 including several works he composed for her including "Palimpsest" and "Double Rainbow" recently presented at ISSUE Project Room, where she has been an Artist-In-Residence, performed on multiple occasions and is a member of the organization’s Artistic Advisory Council. Joan received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts John Cage Award in 2016 and recently released "The Early Immersive Music of Joan La Barbara" (Mode 298).
Abigail Levine is an artist whose work is rooted in dance, but moves across media—performance, text, drawing, and sound. Levine performed with both Marina Abramovic and Yvonne Rainer in their retrospectives at the Museum of Modern Art, and her collaboration with Alvin Lucier—a staging of his Orpheus Variations—premiered at ISSUE Project Room in February 2020. Levine has taught in the Dance Departments at Wesleyan University and Florida State University and is currently on faculty at The New School. Her most recent work, Redactions, was commissioned and premiered by The Chocolate Factory Theater in 2022. She’ll present a new work, Words Begin as Sound, at Fridman Gallery later this month.
James McNew is a member of Yo La Tengo, one of the most beloved and respected bands in America. For more than thirty five years, they have enjoyed success entirely on their own terms – playing the world’s best concert halls, museums, and dives, dominating critics’ lists, doing a Simpsons theme, playing the Velvet Underground in “I Shot Andy Warhol,” sharing stages with some of the most important musicians of our time, and even creating a holiday tradition onto themselves with their yearly series of Hanukkah shows. In addition to working with Alvin Lucier at the 2016 Ecstatic Music Festival, they honored him at ISSUE Project Room’s 2018 Gala with a rendition of “Heavier Than Air”, featuring Alvin plus Will Rawls & Julia Santoli, two ISSUE Artists-In-Residence.
James Fei (b. Taipei, Taiwan) moved to the US in 1992 to study electrical engineering but lost his way in music, becoming a composer, saxophonist and live electronic musician. Works by Fei have been performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra of the S.E.M. Ensemble, Bang on a Can All-Stars, MATA Micro Orchestra and Noord-Hollands Philharmonisch Orkest. Recordings can be found on Leo Records, Improvised Music from Japan, CRI, Krabbesholm and Organized Sound. Fei has taught at Mills College since 2006, where he is Professor of Electronic Arts and Director of the Center for Contemporary Music.
