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.
An opera scene by Paul Pinto features renowned vocalist Joan La Barbara as the posthumous spirit of Thomas Paine. Gelsey Bell’s "Weight", written for Ne(x)tworks and ISSUE's theater, receives its world premiere. Miguel Frasconi’s "Sun Studies", interprets The Cantilever Rainbow, a poetic and visual text from 1965.
Electronics manipulator Tim Goss, formerly of the Shadow Ring, appears with Call Back the Giants, an inter-generational duo with his daughter, Chloe Mutter. Vanessa Rossetto conjures evocative visual-soundscapes in a duo with guest TBA. Matt Krefting presents his refined, textural soundscapes in a solo performance.
Clarinetist Carol Robinson and trumpeter Nate Wooley give American and World Premieres of new works by iconoclastic French composers Denis Dufour and Eliane Radigue. Radigue's "Occam" pieces are part of a substantial set of new works composed with a small group of the world’s finest contemporary musical voices.
Solo sets by both artists accompany a new interpretation of John Cage's "Williams Mix" (1952) by Werner Dafeldecker and Valerio Tricoli, approaching the score from a contemporary perspective. In the context of digital audio and live instrumental performance, the work draws on a library of over 2000 pre-recorded sounds.
A newly commissioned opera by Elliott Sharp depicts the final moments of philosopher Walter Benjamin’s life in Port-Bou at the French-Spanish border as he flees Nazi-occupied France. Bass/baritone Nicholas Isherwood stars with pianist Jenny Lin, accordionist William Schimmel, and electro-acoustic backgrounds by Sharp.
Percussion and keyboard quartet Yarn/Wire perform with an assemblage of acoustic, modified, electronic, and handmade instruments, presenting the result of close collaborations with an international array of experimental composers: Ann Cleare, Chiyoko Szlavnics, and Øyvind Torvund.
Among Japan’s most adventurous filmmakers, Takashi Makino is known for hallucinatory, non-linear films that treat and sound with equal importance. Tonight he presents "Space Noise 3D", an immersive live cinema work for 16mm and video, preceded by three short films, all featuring the music of Jim O’Rourke.
A shadow puppet play by Cary Loren (Destroy All Monsters) and Tom Carey, "The Legend of Mothman" brings the details of alien existence to light, a humorous fantasy mixed with pop-culture lore, set during Halloween in post-industrial Detroit. Sound by concept band Monster Island. Free show for children at 3pm.