ISSUE Project Room (often shortened to ISSUE) is a

music venue A music venue is any location used for a concert or musical performance. Music venues range in size and location, from a small coffeehouse for folk music shows, an outdoor bandshell or bandstand or a concert hall to an indoor sports stadium. Ty ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

, New York, founded in 2003 by Suzanne Fiol. ISSUE Project room owns a theatre in 110 Livingston Street in

Downtown Brooklyn Downtown Brooklyn is the third-largest central business district in New York City (after Midtown Manhattan, Midtown and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighb ...

. The venue supports a wide variety of contemporary performance, specializing in presenting

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs whe ...

and

avant-garde music Avant-garde music is music that is considered to be at the forefront of innovation in its field, with the term "avant-garde" implying a critique of existing aesthetic conventions, rejection of the status quo in favor of unique or original elem ...

History and programming

ISSUE Project Room began in 2003 with a special concert curated by ISSUE's late founder Suzanne Fiol and musician

Marc Ribot Marc Ribot (; born May 21, 1954) is an American guitarist and composer. His work has touched on many styles, including no wave, free jazz, Rock music, rock, and Cuban music. Ribot is also known for collaborating with other musicians, most notab ...

honoring the work of

Frantz Casseus Frantz Casseus (14 December 1915 – 3 June 1993) was a Haitian-American guitarist and composer. Born and raised in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he spent most of his adult life in the United States where he immigrated in 1946 hoping to meet pianist ...

, the father of Haitian Classical music. The venue started in a garage space in the East Village of

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

, as a "project room" to feature experimental performances presented by Fiol's photography agency, Issue Management. Performances by

Debbie Harry Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble, July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie (band), Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1 ...

and the Jazz Passengers,

Elliott Sharp Elliott Sharp (born March 1, 1951) is an American contemporary classical music, contemporary classical composer, multi-instrumentalist, performer, author, and visual artist. A central figure in the Avant-garde music, avant-garde and experimenta ...

Anthony Coleman Anthony Coleman (born August 30, 1955) is an American composer and avant-garde jazz pianist. During the 1980s and 1990s he worked with John Zorn on ''Cobra'', ''Kristallnacht'', ''The Big Gundown'', ''Archery'', and '' Spillane'' and helped push ...

and dozens of others soon followed. By 2005, ISSUE was presenting 100 arts events annually featuring artists from several disciplines. At that time, ISSUE moved into a two-story silo in near the

Gowanus Canal The Gowanus Canal (originally known as Gowanus Creek) is a canal in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, on the westernmost portion of Long Island. Once a vital cargo transportation hub, the canal has seen decreasing use since the mid-20th ...

. Site-specific works utilizing a specially made 16-channel hemispherical speaker system made by sound artist Stephan Moore were added to ISSUE's programming at the Silo. In 2007, ISSUE relocated to the Old American Can Factory due to a rent increase at its Silo. In 2008, ISSUE entered and won a competition for a twenty-year rent-free lease to the 4,800 sq. ft. theater located at 22 Boerum Place, on the ground floor of the historic Beaux-Arts

McKim, Mead & White McKim, Mead & White was an American architectural firm based in New York City. The firm came to define architectural practice, urbanism, and the ideals of the American Renaissance in ''fin de siècle'' New York. The firm's founding partners, Cha ...

“ 110 Livingston Street” building in

downtown Brooklyn Downtown Brooklyn is the third-largest central business district in New York City (after Midtown Manhattan, Midtown and Lower Manhattan), and is located in the northwestern section of the borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. The neighb ...

, to create a "

Carnegie Hall Carnegie Hall ( ) is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. It is at 881 Seventh Avenue (Manhattan), Seventh Avenue, occupying the east side of Seventh Avenue between 56th Street (Manhattan), 56th and 57th Street (Manhattan), 57t ...

for the avant-garde". Fiol died of cancer in October 2009. In June 2012, Zach Layton and Nick Hallett performed

Anthony Braxton Anthony Braxton (born June 4, 1945) is an American experimental composer, educator, music theorist, improviser and multi-instrumentalist who is best known for playing saxophones, particularly the alto. Braxton grew up on the South Side of Chi ...

's opera ''Trillium E'',

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...

's eight-handed piano piece "Gathering Together", and the New York City premiere of two works by French electro-acoustic artist

Luc Ferrari Luc Ferrari (5 February 1929 – 22 August 2005) was a French composer of Italian heritage and a pioneer in musique concrète and electroacoustic music. He was a founding member of RTF's Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRMC), working alongside c ...

. In 2012, ISSUE began to work with the NYC Department of Design and Construction to prepare for renovations. Notable performances at the Boerum Place theater include

Cecil Taylor Cecil Percival Taylor (March 25, 1929April 5, 2018) was an American pianist and poet. Taylor was classically trained and was one of the pioneers of free jazz. His music is characterized by an energetic, physical approach, resulting in comple ...

's first performance in Brooklyn, a three-night series of

Philip Glass Philip Glass (born January 31, 1937) is an American composer and pianist. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century. Glass's work has been associated with minimal music, minimalism, being built up fr ...

in collaboration with

Stephin Merritt Stephin Merritt (born February 9, 1965) is an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the songwriter and principal singer of the bands the Magnetic Fields, the Gothic Archies, and Future Bible Heroes. He is known for ...

Laurie Anderson Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist, musician and filmmaker whose work encompasses performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting,Amirkhanian, Cha ...

, and Jon Gibson,

Keiji Haino Keiji Haino ( ''Haino Keiji''; born May 3, 1952) is a Japanese musician and singer-songwriter whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise music, percussion, psychedelic music, minimalism and drone music. He has been active since th ...

performing solo and with

Fushitsusha Fushitsusha (不失者) is a Japanese rock band specialising in experimental and psychedelic rock genres. The band consists of guitarist and singer Keiji Haino, and a shifting cast of complementary musicians. The group released the majority of i ...

founding member Tamio Shiraishi, and the PAN_ACT festival, which brought together over 30 artists in conjunction with the Berlin-based label PAN. ISSUE completed its capital campaign in 2012 by raising over $4,000,000 to renovate its space, scheduled to begin in 2014.

References

External links

*
ISSUE Project Room on Tumblr
- official blog 2003 establishments in New York City Culture of Brooklyn Music venues in Brooklyn {{Music-venue-stub