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 is thrilled to present celebrated performance artist Karen Finley. Since the early 1980's, Finley has become synonymous with performance art. She has long provoked controversy through her subversive depictions of human sexuality, and and her unique performative responses to oppression in culture and politics.
James K premieres Venomist Choir, a piece exploring how voice, and more specifically the mouth, operates as a subversive architecture, vessel, & stage. The piece is an electroacoustic composition & multimedia choreography embedded within an official New York Fashion Week show by art/fashion imprint Lou Dallas.
ISSUE's fall season opens with legendary experimental jazz artist Milford Graves, performing with renowned multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily. The evening also features a performance by composer and artist Marina Rosenfeld, as well as improvising vocalist Charmaine Lee. Join as an ISSUE Member for a free ticket!
ISSUE's celebration of Sonic Arts Union continues with an expansive evening of works + archival presentations featuring presentations from friends and colleagues inspired by their approach, including Stephen O'Malley, Paula Matthusen, Philip White, James Fei, and Oren Ambarchi & crys cole.
The first evening of a series observing the legacy of experimental music collective the Sonic Arts Union and its founding members: David Behrman, Alvin Lucier, Gordon Mumma, and the late Robert Ashley (1930-2014), features both performances from Sonic Arts Union members and stagings of their compositions.
Julia Santoli continues her 2018 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 performance through genre-crossing collaborations. The evening premieres “burning body of love” with double bassist Zach Rowden.
During his 2018 ISSUE residency, choreographer and performer Will Rawls takes the multifarious figure of the cursor as a guideline to investigate his work that encompasses dance, writing, voice and objects. Cursor 2: Ditties is language gaming for a voice and body in motion.
With roots in industrial music, and a penchant for recording everything from rainforests to skyscrapers, López’ work concerns complex phenomenological referencing to the “substance of reality." Composer Beth Bradfish presents work brining the audience as close to sound as possible, with Diane Moser & Max Johnson.