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.
Thursday, November 30th, ISSUE is pleased to premiere Berlin-based composer Bryan Eubanks’ “Object V” and composer and percussionist Sarah Hennies’ “Contralto,” two new works employing unique compositional strategies.
For his third and final project as 2017 Suzanne Fiol Curatorial Fellow, DeForrest Brown Jr. presents Xenopoietic Deviations, a radical new lecture-as-performance, composed in segments by theorist Inigo Wilkins and Berlin-based digital artist and producer Lars “TCF” Holdhus.
ISSUE is pleased to present the first-ever duo performance between guitarists Loren Connors and Oren Ambarchi: an occasion intersecting their parallel championing of the instrumental abstraction of the guitar, and their independently meaningful performance histories at ISSUE. The event is free for ISSUE Members.
November 9th, our series observing the work of Alvin Lucier continues. Oren Ambarchi and Gary Schmalzl reprise 2013 piece Criss-Cross. The Ever Present Orchestra perform NY premieres of Two Circles and Double Cross-Hatch. Lucier stages his paradigmatic 1970 work I am sitting in a room.
ISSUE presents the first of two days observing the work of revolutionist composer Alvin Lucier. The Ever Present Orchestra stages two recent Lucier works: Braid and Hanover. Joan La Barbara gives the American premiere of Double Rainbow. Lucier himself performs Bird and Person Dyning.
November 2nd ISSUE presents a program introducing composer Alireza Mashayekhi's unflinching experimentalism to NY audiences with three world premieres, for piano, violin, and prepared tape, performed by Cyrus Forough and Ramin Amir Arjomand. The incomparable Margaret Leng Tan and soprano Daisy Press also perform works.
In tribute and commemoration of the artistic contributions of Romanian composer, pianist, and conductor Ana-Maria Avram (1961-2017), ISSUE presents a “tombeau” program of Avram’s works performed by Either/OR, featuring Mario Diaz de Leon, Vasko Dukovski, Russell Greenberg, Margaret Lancaster, and Zach Rowden.
Friday, October 20th, ISSUE presents a public performance celebrating the work of pioneering French composer Éliane Radigue, presented as a part of The Austrian Cultural Forum’s Moving Sounds Festival. The evening spans her acoustic and electronic compositions and features the world premiere of OCCAM RIVER XVI.