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.
Celebrated pianist Chris Abrahams appears in a rare New York solo performance at ISSUE Project Room’s 22 Boerum Place theater. Perhaps best known as the piano player with the long form trio the Necks, Abrahams' music explores the resonating properties of the vibrating piano string.
Adopting the old newsreel/serial/feature film format and staged in the meeting-house-like setting of the Sunview Luncheonette, ABIGAIL HOBBS explores subjugation and its remedy, from Salem Village to the Port Haven Psychiatric Facility, through live multichannel sound improvisation, projection+ historical reenactment.
In honor of Tony Conrad, Los Angeles based filmmaker, photographer, and documentarian Tyler Hubby has been invited by ISSUE to share selections from his archive featuring many never-before-seen performance and interview videos, including three ISSUE Project Room performances.
The Whitney Museum of American Art, in collaboration with ISSUE Project Room, is proud to present the opening night of Cecil Taylor's retrospective and festival. Renowned musician Cecil Taylor is joined by two longstanding collaborators, Tony Oxley and Min Tanaka.
Saturday, April 9th at The Emily Harvey Foundation, ISSUE Project Room presents Dawn Kasper’s WISH WANT WISH, a new improvisational performance composition evoking historical references to the philosophy of desire.
Storied improviser Eugene Chadbourne is a leading voice in the American underground, developing new practices in avant song, instrument building, and music distribution since the early 1970s. In two solo sets, he excavates a broad catalog of works important to his musical development and buried in collected memory.
Japanese artists Takahiro Kawaguchi and Makoto Oshiro use homemade devices and everyday objects to create sounds with discrete relationships to performance spaces. Kawaguchi performs with handmade acoustic horns and small objects, Oshiro improvises with diverse materials including electronics and household products.
Active since the 1960s, Japanese sound artist Akio Suzuki's intensive involvement with the phenomena of pulse and echo led him to develop his own instruments, many of which employ quotidian and modest objects. In this acoustic solo performance, he reprises four pieces from his late 70s series "Conceptual Soundwork".