Formed in NYC in 1993, the improvising collective No-Neck Blues Band (NNCK) favors anonymity, autonomy, and obfuscation. Alongside founding member Keith Connolly (2016 AIR), they return to open ISSUE’s Fall season at First Unitarian Congregational Society in Brooklyn.
ISSUE presents the first commission from Eden Girma (2026 AIR). Part dreamscape and part summoning circle, an intimate diasporic familial archive is pieced together through the eyes of a five-year-old child.
In partnership with Franklin Furnace as part of their 50th anniversary commemoration and November release of "Back to the Present: 50 Years of Free Expression with Franklin Furnace" ISSUE presents an evening of performance and conversation.
Incorporating elements of noise, trance and minimalism, Sergei Tcherepnin (2012 AIR) presents new work for Serge Modular synthesizer.
Vanessa Rossetto and C. Lavender each present new compositions, respectively exploring how trauma and memory collude with audition as a co-composional material. Rossetto presents a localization of transgenerational trauma, Lavender uses "frequency following" as a form of rehabilitation.
Syncretics Series continues with solo performances by renowned Irish pianist Isabelle O’Connell and drum-set master Pheeroan akLaff. O’Connell is a stalwart of the contemporary concert music scene; akLaff imbues his work with ancient belief systems that address creativity as received rather than generated.
Artists-In-Residence 2018
James K opens her residency with the premiere of ELEKTRA (Scream Through the Eyes of a Statue), a multimedia performance conceptualizing the female voice as an “X-ray to the bones of sound," with Eve Essex (winds and electronics), Via App (electronics), Leila Bordreuil (cello) & Eli V Manuscript (textual alchemy).
Pioneering electronics composer David Behrman collaborates with fiddler, improviser, and composer Cleek Schrey. Together, the two perform newly-developing situations: re-worked pieces from the past, embedded Appalachian fiddle tunes, and new compositions.
Artists-In-Residence 2018
Julia Santoli opens her 2018 ISSUE residency with the premiere of two new works within her “Siren Sore” cycle: a mutant project of myriad form manifesting as visual project, recording album, and live performance through genre-crossing collaborations. Each new work features Tamio Shiraishi and Geng, respectively.
ISSUE is pleased to present the debut NYC showcase of Pacific City Sound Visions, an experimental label helmed by Spencer Clark. The evening features debut American performances from Francesco Cavaliere and Leila Hassan, as well as new work from Lieven Martens Moana and Clark’s own Typhonian Highlife project.
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.