Bassist and composer James Ilgenfritz (2011 AIR) returns to ISSUE, joined by Joe McPhee and AC Diamond for their first performance as a trio. This event marks a new shared context for three artists deeply invested in improvisation as a mode of inquiry.
ISSUE presents the premiere of three audiovisual compositions by Matt Mottel (2010 AIR). These works bring Mottel’s distinct artistic sensibility into dialogue with formative figures in his life and in New York’s avant-garde, tracing a lineage that is both deeply personal and central to ISSUE’s history.
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.
ISSUE commemorates the close of the 2018 season with a special year-end event featuring avant-garde industrial duo Wetware, as well as a rare collaborative performance between Shelley Hirsch & Marcia Bassett. James Hoff DJs around the performances. Entrance and drinks are free for ISSUE Members.
James K’s residency culminates with American Womin, a convergence of distinct personas existing across her work. James K debuts the personas as a multimedia live set, presenting them within an overlapping practice spanning voice, modular synthesis, live instrumentation, sampling alchemy, movement & video.
ISSUE presents composers Lainie Fefferman & Seth Cluett premiering new works developed in collaboration with Nokia Bell Labs, evoking a profound history of collaboration and shared dialogue between artists & engineers.
ISSUE is thrilled to present a rare performance from Canadian artist and vocalist Mary Margaret O'Hara, performing in NY for the first time in ten years. O’Hara will give an improvised performance, embedded with songs from her legendary album Miss America, alongside special guests.
Artists-In-Residence 2018
Julia Santoli presents the third and final work of her 2018 ISSUE residency with the premiere of a new work within her “Siren Sore” cycle: a mutant project of myriad form manifesting as visual project, recording album, and live performance through genre-crossing collaborations.
For their final program as the 2018 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow, Queer Trash is excited to present God Is My Co-Pilot and Fire-Toolz. Angular and ecstatic, the program promises an evening of raw and experimental song form, reconstructed noise, and genre promiscuity.
Will Rawls takes the multifarious figure of the cursor as a guideline to investigate his work that encompasses dance, writing, voice and objects. In this final research showing, Rawls speculates upon the cursor as a kind of body, describing the ephemeral unit as “an abstract protagonist, a messenger in crisis.”
