LEILA BORDREUIL & LUKE STEWART: NEW WORKS FOR FEEDBACK ENSEMBLE - CHRIS CORSANO, JULIA SANTOLI, NINA GARCIA, NATE WOOLEY, C. SPENCER YEH

Thursday, May 18th at 7pm, ISSUE is pleased to present new works from cellist, composer and sound-artist Leila Bordreuil and DC/NYC-based musician and organizer Luke Stewart’s Feedback Ensemble, a raucous group of musicians utilizing their own feedback apparatuses—in addition to their instruments—to explore graphic scores, sound, noise, and improvisation. Centering techniques of sonic feedback generation within instrumental practice, the notated compositions will emerge through a radically collaborative process, in which performers co-create the works. The event takes place outdoors, undercover in the built amphitheater at Under the "K" Bridge Park underneath the Kosciuszko Bridge in Brooklyn. 

Described by Bordreuil and Stewart as “an exercise in non-dogmatic composition,” the project invites contributions by an ensemble working with audio feedback, including celebrated drummer Chris Corsano, 2018 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Julia Santoli, 2011 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence Nate Wooley, and 2015 ISSUE Artist-In-Residence C. Spencer Yeh. The Ensemble also features a special guest appearance from Parisian guitarist Nina Garcia, who is traveling to the U.S. to perform a premiere solo performance on May 12th and then participate as part of the Ensemble. The ensemble explores a series of graphic scores that address the unpredictability of feedback as a catalyst to interpret spaces between composition and improvisation. Through extended rehearsals, the ensemble performers have interpreted and rewritten the pieces collectively. 

On May 12th, ISSUE is also pleased to present the U.S. debut of  work at Brooklyn Music School in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Leila Bordreuil and renowned guitarist/composer Lee Ranaldo also perform. 

Located directly under the Kosciuszko Bridge and called “Under the K Bridge Park,” the park converts a formerly abandoned site into a vibrant seven-acre open space that invites the public to a little-known waterfront of Newtown Creek. Under the soaring Kosciuszko Bridge columns, the Park's “El-space” grows from 40 feet to as much as 100 feet in height. The performance will take place Creekside, by Scott Ave at the Northern end of "The Arm". Entrance to "The Arm" is at Van Dam St & Meeker Ave. For more information about the site, directions, a map and access details, please visit: https://nbkparks.org/under-the-k/

Leila Bordreuil is a French-American cellist, composer, improviser and sound-artist based in Brooklyn. She accesses concepts as diverse as Noise, contemporary classical, free jazz, and experimental traditions but adheres to none of them. Her music mixes deep melancholia with cathartic harsh noise-walls, and was described by the New York Times as “steadily scathing music, favoring long and corrosive atonalities.” Driven by a fierce interest in pure sound and inherent texture, Leila challenges conventional cello practice through extreme extended techniques and unorthodox amplification methods, to the extent she sometimes seems to be playing the P.A system rather than her cello. Her compositions frequently incorporate sound-spatialization by way of site-specific pieces and multichannel installations. Collaboration is central to Leila's musical practice; she has worked extensively with Sean Ali, Bookworms, Michael Foster, Vincent Jehanno, Kali Malone, Joanna Mattrey, Bill Nace (Body/Head), Lee Ranaldo (Sonic Youth), Zach Rowden (Tongue Depressor), Julia Santoli, Tamio Shiraishi (Fushitutsa) and Luke Stewart. She is a Jerome Foundation Artist Fellow (2021-23) and was a 2022 commissioned composer and artist-in-residence at the GRM, Paris. She regularly tours in Europe and the US, performing at prestigious concert halls and punk houses alike.

Luke Stewart is a musician, performer, improviser-composer, organizer, and writer-researcher whose work represents a deep reverence for the history and tradition of Creative Music: a tradition which encompasses the diverse styles of expression within the body of Black Music in the United States, Africa, and throughout the world. Stewart’s regular ensembles include Irreversible Entanglements, SILT Trio, Exposure Quintet, and the experimental rock duo Blacks’ Myths; he also performs regularly in numerous collaborations. In his Works for Upright Bass and Amplifier and Works for Upright Bass and Amplifier Vol 1 and Vol 2 (Astral Spirits, 2018, 2021, 2022), Stewart explores real-time harmonic and melodic possibilities, as well as the intersection of the acoustic and the electronic—the relationship between wood and electricity. He uses the resonant qualities of the bass and one or more amplifiers to create reverberations from the plucking of strings, his bow, and moving the instrument itself back and forth in space. Over the years, Stewart has performed at Arts for Art’s Vision Festival, New York, NY; Winter Jazzfest, New York, NY; The Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C; Rhizome DC, Washington, D.C.; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; Big Ears Festival, Knoxville, TN; the BIMHUIS, Amsterdam, Netherlands; and Roskilde Festival, Roskilde, Denmark, among many other venues and festivals in the United States and abroad. As a scholar, Stewart has also performed and lectured at Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD; Medgar Evers College, Brooklyn, NY; George Mason University, Fairfax, VA; Wayne State University, Detroit, MI; University of Montana, Missoula, MT; New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM; and the University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC.  Stewart has had residencies at Roulette Intermedium, Brooklyn, NY; The Hermitage Artist Retreat, Englewood, FL; and Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY. He received a Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant (2022) to support his work with KO Arts in New Orleans. Stewart was noted in DownBeat as one of twenty-five performers to “shape jazz for decades” (2020). He holds a B.A. from American University and an M.A. from The New School, where he is also an adjunct professor in the College of Performing Arts. Stewart is a co-founder and artistic director of CapitalBop, a Washington, D.C.-based jazz nonprofit.

Nina Garcia lives and works in Paris. also plays in the group mamiedaragon, in Autoreverse with Arnaud Rivière, in duo with Danish trombonist Maria Bertel (from Selvhenter), and in duo with percussionist Camille Émaille. Since 2019, she is a member of the improvisation ensemble Le Un which gathers 25 European improvising musicians and artists. They organize different events in France around improvisation in large ensembles. Garcia has been selected for the European program SHAPE PLATFORM 2019. In 2020/2021 she was in residence at the GRM for a commission for the Présences Électroniques festival. She has performed at Instants Chavirés, Montreuil / Café Oto, London / Sonic Protest Festival, France / Sonic Acts, Amsterdam / Presence Electronique GRM, Paris / LUFF, Lausanne / Cave 12, Geneva / 104 and Gaité Lyrique, Paris / Museo National Reina Sofia, Madrid / Wharf Chambers, Leeds / All Ears, Oslo / Skanu Mezs, Riga / Echoraum, Wien / Occii, Amsterdam / Ateliers Claus, Brussels / Festival Banlieues Bleues, Pantin / FolkTeatern, Göteborg and more. Garcia has also been involved in the organization of concerts, the diffusion and transmission of experimental music for almost 10 years. Until 2021, she was in charge of transmission at Instants Chavirés, the epicenter of experimental music in France, then co-programmer of the concerts in 2020 and 2021. She invests herself in the pedagogy field around these musics by leading workshops and special concerts for art students, children and families.

Chris Corsano is an upstate NY-based drummer who has been active at the intersections of collective improvisation, free jazz, avant-rock, and noise music since the late 1990's. He began a long-standing, high-energy musical partnership with saxophonist Paul Flaherty in 1998. Their style, which they occasionally refer to with (semi-)tongue-in-cheek humor as "The Hated Music", combines modern free-jazz's ecstatic collectivist spirit and the urgency and intensity of hardcore punk. A move from western Massachusetts to the UK in 2005 led Corsano to develop his solo music--a dynamic, spontaneously-composed amalgam of extended techniques for drum set and non-percussive instruments of his own making: e.g. bowed violin strings stretched across drum heads, modified reed instruments, and stockpiles of resonant metal. In February 2006, Corsano released his first solo recording, The Young Cricketer, and toured extensively throughout Europe, USA, Australia, and Japan. He spent 2007 and '08 as the drummer on Björk's Volta world tour, all the while weaving in shows and recordings on his days off with the likes of Evan Parker, Virginia Genta, C. Spencer Yeh, and Jandek. Moving back to the U.S. in 2009, Corsano returned focus to his own projects, including a duo with Michael Flower, Vampire Belt (with Bill Nace), Rangda (with Richard Bishop and Ben Chasny) and his solo work, further expanded in its use of contact microphones and synthesizers. In 2017, he received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artist Award. Corsano's dedication to collective improvisation has led to collaborations with many kindred spirits and his appearance on over 150 records and 1000 live performances.

Julia Santoli is a multi-disciplinary artist and experimental musician. Santoli creates immersive and precarious environments with voice, feedback, electronics, and installation. Her approach to vocalization integrates embodied practice with an attention to close listening and empathetic response, in electroacoustic compositions and structured improvisations often tipping the scales between resonant clarity and extreme sonic states. Solo works, collaborations, and sound design have been presented at spaces including ISSUE Project Room, Roulette, Judson Memorial Church, Queens Museum, Drawing Center, Widow Jane Mine Cave, and artist-run spaces across the United States; Leipzig, Germany; Japan; and elsewhere. Santoli has been an Artist-In-Residence at ISSUE Project Room, Pioneer Works, and Leipzig International Art Program, and had the honor of being an Asian Cultural Council Artist Fellow in 2019. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies in music and social practices in the Ethnomusicology program at The Graduate Center, CUNY.

Nate Wooley grew up in Clatskanie, Oregon. He works in contemporary classical, jazz, noise, and electronic music as an interpreter, improviser, and composer. While a large part of his work has consisted of solo improvisation and composition, he has collaborated with Anthony Braxton, Éliane Radigue, Annea Lockwood, Yoshi Wada, Christian Wolff, Wadada Leo Smith, and others. Mr. Wooley has performed as a soloist or commissioned composer at SWR Donaueschinger Musiktage, Musica Polonica Nova, Jazztopad Festival, Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville, A L’ARME! Festival, music unlimited, and international jazz festivals. He has been an artist-in-residence at London’s Cafe OTO and Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room. He was a 2016 recipient of a Grants to Artists award in Music / Sound from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Nate Wooley is the editor of Sound American, an online journal intended to demystify contemporary experimental music with the intention of expanding and perpetuating a base audience for the radical and avant-garde. He is currently the curator of the Database of Recorded American Music (DRAM) and teaches at The New School for Social Research. 

C. Spencer Yeh is recognized for interdisciplinary activities as an artist, improviser, and composer, as well as for his music project Burning Star Core. This past year Yeh has broadcasted live for The Kitchen NYC, ESS Chicago IL with both The Renaissance Society and Vox Effusis (organized by Lou Mallozzi), Casa del Lago UNAM MX (with Jacob Wick and Bonnie Jones), and both solo and in Luke Stewart/Leila Bordreuil’s Feedback Ensemble for Roulette NYC. Additionally, Yeh premiered new video works with ISSUE Project Room NYC, and the Bemis Center Omaha NE, and exhibited with Loong Mah NYC, Carriage Trade NYC, 5th Floor/Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, and Bánh Mì Verlag. In 2019, Yeh received the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists award.