Monarch Butterfly by rocío sánchez (2026 AIR) features Melissa Almaguer (tap dance and percussion) and Kenneth Jiménez (double bass). Together, the trio explores the elusive monarch’s migratory journey through sound and movement, with each instrument articulating distinct states of motion.
Isabella Thorpe-Woods presents "Envelop/e," her second program as ISSUE’s 2026 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow. Bringing together choreographers Jade Manns and Ella Dawn W-S for site-specific duets, they navigate presence and absence, repetition and rupture, and the tension between inherited geometries and shifting landscapes.
"Spiriting Off" is a new solo work by luthier Webb Crawford (2026 AIR) for electric guitar, tenor banjo, and five-string banjo.
ISSUE closes the summer season with the return of Matana Roberts (2009 AIR). Opening the evening, Ben Vida (2013 AIR) will perform music from his 2026 release, "Oblivion Seekers" with vocalist Sara Magenheimer.
Named for Georgia Hubley’s solo project Little Black Egg, this expanded big band features Hubley and Yo La Tengo compatriots Ira Kaplan and James McNew, joined by bassist Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu), and jazz mainstays Susie Ibarra, Daniel Carter, and Taylor Ho Bynum. Australian improvisor Oren Ambarchi plays solo.
Artists-In-Residence 2015
Artist, composer and improvisor C. Spencer Yeh opens his ISSUE residency with a solo performance celebrating the release of his first LP devoted entirely to the voice, "Solo Voice I – X" on Primary Information. Strategies from the recorded document serve as guidelines and a starting point for a new solo improvisation.
Tom Thayer performs accompanied by L. GRAY (aka Keith Connolly of NNCK), an exploratory piece for synthesizer, tape, and electronics dedicated to Gary Wright (author of Dream Weaver) and Italian composer Walter Marchetti. Kyle Eyre Clyd performs with theremin, room feedback, wave generators, and mono speakers.
Few bands exude the DIY ethos more than Dead Moon, one of the most revered underground bands of all time. Formidable guitarist, songwriter and all-around grunge-deity J Mascis plays solo. Borbetomagus take free-improv to the extreme in a mass of relentless noise. Improv quartet Das Audit open with heavy instrumentals.
Sabisha Friedberg presents a live mix of the third and final movement of "The Hant Variance" as a multichannel/quadraphonic piece. This finale, the most symphonic in it construction and melancholic in its tonality, is the resolution to the first two movements, released as a 2xLP on ISSUE's Distributed Objects imprint.
For the last 20 years free jazz drummer Paal Nilssen-Love has built a formidable reputation as one of the world’s most energetic and prolific musicians. His 11-piece band Large Unit is Nordic music at its most powerful, veering between sheer force and more subtle and textural passages.
Littoral
Felix Bernstein is skewered, roasted, and bloodied as he launches his debut book, Notes on Post-Conceptual Poetry, into the art and poetry world that it viciously deconstructs. Alex Fleming hosts Cecilia Corrigan, Trisha Low, Merrie Cherry, and Adam Fitzgerald, with music by Cammisa Buerhaus.
David Rosenboom: Propositional Music
David Rosenboom's "How Much Better If Plymouth Rock..." is among the composer's most radical works; a stellar ensemble performs with animation and live, light compositions. "Continental Divide" articulates harmonic resonances emerging as an opening tritone slowly finds its path to resolution.