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.
Félicia Atkinson presents a brand new work involving an imaginary dialogue between the poems of Francis Ponge and texts of her own, in French and in English, with electronics, voice and piano. The evening also features Afrikan Sciences & Sassacyprigo performing nuanced soundscapes conjuring different temporalities
During his 2018 ISSUE residency, choreographer and performer Will Rawls takes the multifarious figure of the cursor as a guideline to investigate his work that encompasses dance, writing, voice and objects. In this first research showing, Rawls focuses on the materiality of his voice as it runs through his writing.
Paul de Jong, cellist and co-founder of celebrated experimental duo the Books, and composer and violist Jessica Pavone’s String Ensemble each present new work -- spanning de Jong’s distinctly hybrid and emotionally-driven cello music, to Pavone’s uniquely physical compositions for strings.
March 18th 2018, ISSUE hosts an interactive performance of the rhythmic game and composition Stridulations For The Good Luck Feast with Billy Martin, joined by TILT Brass and fellow musicians as a part of French Institute Alliance Française’s 2018 Tilt Kids Festival. Entry is $25 for a child with an accompanying adult.
Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellowship 2018
For their first program as 2018 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow, Queer Trash is delighted to present Brutal Measures (Lydia Lunch + Weasel Walter), Keijaun Thomas, and Straight Panic. Queer Trash cruises in relentless pursuit of bodily disruptions and sonic deviance against avant-normativity.
Computer music pioneer Carl Stone, composer/performer Ned Rothenberg, and Tokyo-based vocalist Ami Yamasaki perform in an evening of overlapping improvisations. While Stone & Rothenberg have performed together previously in Japan over their 35 year-long friendship, this is their debut New York performance.
February 24th, ISSUE presents Argentine acousmatic composer Beatriz Ferreyra and Obfuscation Morphologies, a new work by Eric Frye. Though they differ in generation, both composers employ kindred methods for orienting sonic surfaces with signature precision across electroacoustic and computer music.
