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.
For her inaugural residency performance, 2019 Artist-In-Residence Charmaine Lee premieres “Laminals,” the first of three movements of a new long-form piece for solo voice. The program is paired with an improvised trio performance featuring id m theft able (voice, objects) and Andrea Pensado (voice, electronics).
French composer Christine Groult's work is performed in the U.S. for the first time. A major figure in the development of musique concrète, Groult remains an underrepresented voice despite her significant contributions to the field of electroacoustic music. Experimental sacred music duo ARIADNE also presents new work.
Rena Anakwe opens her 2019 residency with “The Cosmology of Water,” an immersive ritual that contemplates the pluralities that water holds as a molecular component of life, as a sacred space, and, at times, a site of destruction. Anakwe submerses attendees into a world of sound, scent, movement, lighting+projections.
ISSUE presents Colombian musician & composer Lucrecia Dalt, her first US performance since 2014. Celebrating the recent release of her acclaimed album Anticlines, the evening features Dalt’s interstitial approach to speech & song. Philadelphia-based duo Metasplice also present new work.
ISSUE is thrilled to present a collaborative performance between two of America’s most renowned experimental artists, theater director & visual artist Robert Wilson and film director, actor & musician Jim Jarmusch. In a benefit concert supporting ISSUE Project Room, the two stage a new collaboration.
Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellowship 2019
2019 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow Benedict Nguyen curates revolutionary new moon in aquarius (rnma), featuring Ambika Raina, Katrina Reid & lily bo shapiro. The evening is their first program in soft bodies in hard places, a series of trans-disciplinary events circling planetary events over the 2019 season.
Recently amalgamated from deep artistic connections within NYC’s underground, ISSUE presents OTHER ICON, the newly formed trio of NYC artists King Vision Ultra, sound ritual project of PTP imprint head Geng, experimental synthesist, composer& performer Via App, and digi-poet and musician YATTA.
ISSUE opens its 2019 season with an impressive gathering of ISSUE alumni from across the organization’s history. Featuring a roving program of deeply experimental artists, the evening welcomes back Matana Roberts, Haley Fohr of Circuit des Yeux, & Suzanne Langille + Daniel Carter, Neel Murgai & Loren Connors.