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.
After 9 Evenings: A 50th Anniversary Celebration
Pioneering experimental composer Morton Subotnick premieres a new collaboration with Berlin-based video artist, Lillevan. The duo of composer and turntable artist Marina Rosenfeld and analog synth innovator Ben Vida reprise their improvisational collaboration first presented during Vida’s 2013 ISSUE residency.
In October 1966, Experiments in Art and Technology produced a series of legendary performances, 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering, at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York. The films of each performance, produced by Billy Klüver and Julie Martin, are rarely-seen archival documents reconstructing this historic event.
Co-produced by Julie Martin and Fridman Gallery, in association with ISSUE, and curated by Julie Martin, Regine Basha, and Daniel Neumann, 9 Evenings + 50 presents three generations of composers and performers. The series celebrates the 50th anniversary of 9 Evenings: Theatre & Engineering.
Restless Books, BOMB Magazine, and ISSUE present Cuba's bestselling science fiction author Yoss -- its most notorious literary rocker: He’s the lead singer and harmonicist for the Havana death metal band Tenaz. The event will begin with a discussion of the Cuban literary and metal scenes, followed by a performance.
Actor, director, and writer Steve Buscemi and composer/multi-instrumentalist Elliott Sharp return to present excerpts of their collaboration "Rub Out The Word." The evening also features a new collaboration between current ISSUE Artist-in-Residence, Cecilia Corrigan and past AIR James Ilgenfritz.
Leila Bordreuil opens her 2016 Residency with the premiere of Piece for Cello and Double Bass Ensemble. A new work, the piece overly amplifies all instruments in order to make corporal micro-gestures and hushed overtones audible to the human ear.
ISSUE Project Room's Fall 2016 season opens at the First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn Heights with Oren Ambarchi solo, and a duo set by Zeena Parkins & Brian Chase. Known for his deft and exploratory instrumental approaches, Ambarchi has been a central driver of extended sonic investigation.
Focusing mainly on the combination of Joe McPhee's pocket trumpet and Peter Evans' piccolo trumpet, the pair explores a universe of sound with tiny instruments; noise, melody and silence weave together in an intense yet unhurried conversation Saturday, August 13th at 8pm at ISSUE’s 22 Boerum Place theater.