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.
Peter Evans opens his 2014 residency with a solo trumpet performance, a format he has been working with for over a decade. Improvisation is used as a method of pressurizing and slowly refining materials from concert to concert, a process of using the known as a catapult to the unknown.
POSTPONED DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER! A shadow puppet play by Cary Loren (Destroy All Monsters) and Tom Carey, "The Legend of Mothman" brings the details of alien existence to light, in a humorous fantasy, mixed with pop-culture lore, set during Halloween in post-industrial Detroit. Sound by concept band Monster Island.
MATA's Interval 7.1, co-curated by composer Ray Evanoff and pianist Mabel Kwan, presents a concert of adventurous solo works by six young composers exploring the keyboardist's tactile engagement with a wide range of instruments and compositions, negotiating the quirks, challenges, and limitations of each.
Yarn/Wire/Currents, a new collaboration of ISSUE and the acclaimed piano and percussion quartet Yarn/Wire, is initiated with the premiere of newly commissioned works for the ensemble by Berlin-based composers Marianthi Papalexandri Alexandri and Thomas Meadowcroft.
Artist-In-Residence Jules Rosskam premieres a new collaboration with Madsen Minax, GHOST TRIP. A series of short videos features live musical accompaniment as both structured and improvisational responses to the visuals. Minax performs on a range of instruments, and facilitates the emergence of a makeshift chorus.
James Hoff debuts two new compositions for tuba and French horn exploring the concept of involuntary musical imagery, or earworms. Manipulated disco and pop songs are pitched, cut, and re-arranged into new works reflecting the cinematic character of the earworm phenomena in the original songs.
Ensemble Pamplemousse open their decennary season with a program focused on works by composers Alvin Lucier and Klaus Lang, who each use fabrics of heightened minimalism to create musical tapestries that invite the listener to rediscover the acoustic mechanics taken for granted in everyday experience.
Swedish Energies: EMS in NYC 2013
The third Swedish Energies festival closes with more of Sweden's most progressive performers. With debut collaborations by Mats Lindström & Marina Rosenfeld, and Henrik Rylander & MV Carbon, plus the hypnotic Hanna Hartman, saxaphonist Mats Gustafsson, audio-visual duo The Space in Between, & DJ Lary 7.