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.
Frances-Marie Uitti + Carol Robinson in Residence
Clarinetist Carol Robinson and cellist Frances-Marie Uitti give a free lecture with music examples, a demonstration of their pioneering techniques that have expanded the fields of their respective instruments. "Composing with Random Generators" is led by Robinson, and "Strips, Tubes and Code", by Uitti.
Frances-Marie Uitti + Carol Robinson in Residence
Clarinetist Carol Robinson and cellist Frances-Marie Uitti have worked in parallel for years, originating from their work with Giacinto Scelsi. US Premieres by Robinson/Uitti, Eliane Radigue, Giacinto Scelsi, and Annie Gosfield open this two-night residency, plus a solo cello work by Jonathan Harvey.
Artists-in-Residence 2013
Jules Rosskam invites you to an exploration of a no-good-place. A performative lecture of research on utopia— presented as an open rehearsal for Rosskam's ‘live film’ in July— "No Place But Between Us" investigates utopia not as a distant, ever unreachable, ideal world, but as a force that exists in and between us.
For the opening performance of his residency, electronic composer Ben Vida premieres a new solo composition for digital and analog synthesis, followed by a talk with artist Michael Bell-Smith, and a new work for trio with Tyondai Braxton of Battles and Sara Magenheimer.
ZS and Mivos Quartet come together for an evening of new chamber music and collaboration. Mivos performs works by Mario Diaz de Leon, Tristan Perich, and J.S. Bach arranged by ZS' Patrick Higgins. ZS perform selections from their recent output, including their ferocious 'Xe' in a new arrangement featuring Mivos.
In this evening of live electronics and instrumentalists, Al Margolis premieres a new quartet of bassoonist Leslie Ross, trombonist Monique Buzzarté, live video by Katherine Liberovskaya, and Margolis on laptop. Phill Niblock presents his now-classic "seth-work", a duo for laptop and guitar featuring David Watson.
Dennis Johnson's "November" (1959), one of the most significant pieces of the minimalist repertoire, was virtually unknown until recently. Renowned pianist R. Andrew Lee gives the first performance of this epic work since its premiere, working from a score reconstructed by composer and musicologist Kyle Gann.
Cassette musician Aki Onda collaborates with a San Fransisco based filmmaker Paul Clipson for his final performance of the 2012 Artist-in-Residence series. An investigation of personal, intuitive spaces, Onda and Clipson render images and sounds as if a fragmented journey of landscapes and memories.