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.
Artists-In-Residence 2017
Byron Westbrook opens his 2017 residency with an iteration of Interval/Habitat -- a technique for site-specific intervention within a social environment. The piece plays a looping sequence of light and sound “scenes” that impose a time-based narrative over all activity within the space.
Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellowship 2017
For his first project as 2017 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow, DeForrest Brown Jr. organizes the US premiere of Quantum Natives’ expansive sonic universe. Established in 2013 as an online world-building platform, the international collective focuses on digital music and visual art.
Friday, April 7th, ISSUE gathers artists who all have shared with Tony Conrad a friendship and a deep devotion to music and art. In honor of Tony, Spectral Density is an evening of music with original works by Henry Flynt, Dan Conrad, and a Arnold Dreyblatt, as well as a performance of one of Tony's pieces by Lary 7.
Well known for performing with the electroacoustic improvisational unit Supersilent, Norwegian artist Helge Sten’s music as Deathprod has been highly influential in its prescient formulation of a dark sonic palette that has become widely celebrated in contemporary experimental music.
Kabir Carter opens his residency with a performance introducing his practice to the historic architecture of ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Theater, performing across the threshold of acoustic feedback and executing simple tasks to activate and excite the hard surfaces of the space’s floor, walls, columns and ceilings.
Filmmaker/photographer Jem Cohen established Gravity Hill Sound + Image in 2014 as a forum for exploring film with live soundtracks. With guitarist Guy Picciotto, drummer Jim White, master lute player George Xylouris, and Cohen mixing audio from the films, the ensemble will experiment at ISSUE with new films.
ISSUE presents two generations of artists working in the medium of computational music: pioneering computer musician and scholar Curtis Roads, whose contributions to electronic music and computer music are vast, as well as composer, artist, and curator Eric Frye.
Leila Bordreuil premieres a collaborative piece developed with Austin Julian. Featuring Tamio Shiraishi & Julia Santoli, the work combines music and performance art within an operatic structure using homemade instruments / creative amplification methods. An improvised set by Bordreuil and guitarist Bill Nace opens.