Brooklyn has one more notable performance venue, and the programmers of ISSUE, among the most imaginative in New York, are poised to take advantage of it.

—Alex Ross, The New Yorker

The reviews are still rolling in, but by all account Gaudeamus Muziekweek was a huge success. Check out some of the photos after the jump, and let us know which ones are your favorites. Without the support of you (our audience) we wouldn’t have been able to hold such a successful first weekend in our new home – but what really makes this all happen is the ongoing commitment of our members. We’ve added new benefits to our membership program for 2012, including the Jonathan Kane’s February Live at ISSUE Project Room CD and invitations to private events with artists in our community. So become a member today!

Gaudeamus Muziekweek New York – presented for the first time in the United States by ISSUE Project Room – features the U.S. premiere of 2011 Gaudeamus Prize-winner Yoshi Onishi’s “Dèpart dans…”, a composer portrait of Yannis Kyriakides, International Contemporary Ensemble, Gyorgy Ligeti’s “Poème Symphonique” for 100 metronomes, Ensemble MAE, Wet Ink Ensemble, Iktus Percussion & much more.

Check out a few sample tracks from some of the artists who are performing at Gaudeamus Muziekweek, hosted on the Free Music Archive.

Help support ISSUE’s move to 110 Livingston – donate today!

Come down to the Can Factory this January 20 for a farewell-to-the-can-factory / record release party with Jonathan Kane’s February, Talibam! and MV Carbon & Tony Conrad. We’ll be celebrating the release of February’s first live album – recorded over two nights at ISSUE Project Room – and our move to 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn.

Check out a sample track from the album, hosted on the WFMU Free Music Archive. The entire album will be available at the concert on January 20, so hope to see you there!

Since 1945, the Netherlands-based contemporary music festival Gaudeamus Muziekweek has presented groundbreaking and challenging new music by emerging composers from around the world. Working in partnership with Gaudeamus, ISSUE Project Room will present, for the first time in the United States, a festival highlighting some of the extraordinary talent that has emerged from the Gaudeamus Muziekweek.

Gaudeamus Muziekweek New York will mark ISSUE Project Room’s move to its new home at 110 Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn, where it has won a 20-year, rent-free lease and where, beginning in late January, it will present all of its programming. One of New York’s foremost commissioners and presenters of experimental art and performance, ISSUE has grown rapidly since its 2003 founding. In the process, it has contributed to the development of the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, where it is currently located, and, previously, Manhattan’s Lower East Side. It will now play a vital role in the development of rapidly growing Downtown Brooklyn.

ISSUE Project Room’s gorgeous jewel-box theater at 110 Livingston—originally designed by McKim, Mead, and White and built in the 1920s—will become the only European-style chamber hall open to the public in New York, and one of only a few in the United States. ISSUE Project Room Executive Director Ed Patuto says, “The ability to present works in an authentic hall with acoustics that complement the performance will be an unprecedented asset for New York’s experimental and broader cultural communities.”

Like ISSUE, Gaudeamus serves as a catalyst and incubator for the development of trends in contemporary music. The festival has nurtured and supported the work of composers ranging from Louis Andriessen, Gyorgy Ligeti and Pauline Oliveros to Yannis Kyriakides, Richard Barrett and Ted Hearne.

Mixing performances by Dutch and American ensembles, Gaudeamus Muziekweek New York will feature the U.S. premiere of 2011 Gaudeamus Prize-winner Yoshi Onishi’s “Départ dans…” performed by Wet Ink Ensemble, plus performances by International Contemporary Ensemble (ICE), Iktus Percussion, and the Netherlands-based ensemble MAE. Programs include a portrait of Amsterdam-based composer Yannis Kyriakides, an evening of electronic music featuring Wouter Snoei, Matthew Ostrowski, and Philip White & Ted Hearne; a rare performance of Gyorgi Ligeti’s Poème Symphonique for 100 metronomes; and performances by the CUNY New Music Ensemble.

Gaudeamus Muziekweek New York is supported, in part, by public funds from the Netherlands Cultural Services and has received funding through a grant from the Netherland-America Foundation. Support has also been provided by Buma Cultuur, Gaudeamus Muziekweek and Muziek Centrum Nederlands with special thanks to Erwin Maas and Henk Heuvelmans.

Thank you for so much for all of your support this year. 2012 is going to be the most exciting and pivotal year yet for our organization, and I want to ask you to consider making a tax-deductible year-end gift of $50, $100, or $250 to support our ninth year of presenting groundbreaking new work.

In 2011, donations from our community helped support more than 135 performances, including the commission and presentation of 30 new works by innovative artists from New York and around the world. The Wall Street Journal hailed these efforts, deeming us “Brooklyn’s leading avantgarde presenter.”

2012 will be a milestone in our history. We are thrilled that, beginning in March, all performances and events will take place at 110 Livingston St. in Downtown Brooklyn—New York’s new home for experimental music and arts. Our move to 110 will allow artists’ use of the space to inform the architectural design process for renovations of the theater.

In the coming year, your support will enable:

• 100+ pre-renovation performances at 110 Livingston
• 24 commissions of new work
• 4 year-long artist residencies by Hunter Hunt-Hendrix, Aki Onda, Sergei Tcherepnin and Yarn/Wire
• Temporary acoustic treatment of 110 Livingston, to enable expanded pre-construction use
• A new NYU-Brooklyn Poly Lab, where students will collaborate with artists to create open-source
software that will be made available to artists in our community.

Please join us in celebrating the arts and the exciting year ahead by making a fully tax-deductible donation. Your participation continues to be absolutely vital to our success as we work to raise $25,000 by December 31 to support 2012 programs.

Thank you, again, for all of your support. We look forward to sharing with you another year of artistic invention in our new performance space!

With all my best wishes,

Ed Patuto
Executive Director

P.S. Make your gift by December 31, 2011 and receive 2 free tickets to a concert in our first month at 110 Livingston.  Make a gift online, call us at 718-330-0313 x5 or mail a check payable to “ISSUE Project Room” to 232 3rd Street, 3rd Fl, Brooklyn, NY 11215. Attn: Year-End Campaign.

Join us on November 2nd at our gala, ARCADIA, where the Svetlana Spajic Group will be performing in Robert Wilson’s New York premiere of The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic. This new work combines elements of traditional Serbian a cappella village singing, fragments of Marina’s childhood, and the modern soundscapes of William Basinski and Antony. Check out Spajic’s performance at the 11th Ring Ring Festival in Belgrade above, and pick up your tickets here.

Svetlana first collaborated with Marina Abramovic in her Balkan Erotic Epic in 2005, and then performed at the closing party for “The Artist is Present” at MoMA in 2010. The Sventlana Spajic Group utilizes archaic vocal techniques to perform a wide repertoire of Serbian folk songs, such as mountain shaking songs and “ganga,” ancient ballads of Eastern Serbia. One of the few young singers of Serbia who was taught to speak the oral language and its vast dialects, Spajic seeks to preserve the musical heritage of the region through revival of ancient vocal tradition.

ARCADIA on 11/2, 7pm at 110 Livingston. Get your tickets now!

On October 23, at 2:00 pm at 110 Livingston Street in Downtown Brooklyn, Issue Project Room will host a screening of Robert Ashley’s 1983 classic made-for-TV opera “Perfect Lives,” followed by a Q&A with composer Robert Ashley and “Vidas Perfectas” director Alex Waterman. Join for our final week of our fundraising campaign for “Vidas Perfectas” – a whole new version of “Perfect Lives” for the 21st century, translated into Spanish and set on the Mexico-U.S. border – as we offer tickets to this rare screening on a sliding scale of $10 – $50. Please give what you can, as all proceeds will go toward the production of “Vidas Perfectas.” We hope you can make it to this extraordinary event.

10/23 @ 2:00pm at 110 Livingston / Donate Now | $10 – $50 (sliding scale)

However, the only way to hear William Basinski’s latest work in New York is to pick up a couple of tickets to Arcadia and support Issue Project Room’s year of programming. William Basinski and Antony, who have been working together since Williamsburg’s early days as an offbeat artists’ colony, recently composed the music for Robert Wilson’s new work “The Life and Death of Marina Abramovic.” They – along with Marina Abramovic and Svetlana Spajic vocal quartet – will give the exclusive New York performance of the music from this work on November 2, 2011, at Issue Project Room at 110 Livingston.