Brooklyn, NY (For Release 02.22.2011) ---- Known as “Brooklyn’s leading avant-garde venue,” (Wall Street Journal) ISSUE Project Room presents a spectacular music- and star-filled evening on Friday, March 4^th, honoring the 60^th birthday of the prolific composer,  innovator, and guitar virtuoso Elliott Sharp.  Bookended by a cocktail reception and after-party, the concert premieres two new works by Sharp including: Trinity for Golden Globe® Award-Winning actor Steve Buscemi (ISSUE board member) and film/dance/light artist Jo Andres; and Occam’s Razor for double quartet performed by post-classical music avatars JACK Quartet and Sirius Quartet.  (Detailed schedule of events is below.)

 

“Elliott Sharp has played such an integral role not only in the avant-garde music scene but also in the entire New York arts community,” exclaims Steve Wax, ISSUE Board Chair.  “We’re humbled to be hosting such a special event in his honor.” 

 

“Having this celebration at ISSUE Project Room is both an exciting honor and significant in that my history with this great venue extends back to its ‘beginnings’,” explains Sharp, supporter of ISSUE since its start in the East Village in 2003.  “I look forward to being one of the first to premiere works in its new home.”

 

This marks the first benefit event to be held at ISSUE’s future location at 110 Livingston in Downtown Brooklyn, a beautiful 1925 McKim, Mead, and White theater space to which ISSUE was awarded a 20-year rent-free lease.  In 2009, ISSUE was awarded a $1.133 million grant from the Brooklyn Borough President towards the estimated $2.5 million necessary.   ISSUE has been working with WORK Architecture Company and ARUP to develop the design concept for the space.  March 4 Benefit attendees will enjoy the first public preview of the new designs for the space.

 

Proceeds from the benefit will support ISSUE’s year-round critically acclaimed programs supporting hundreds of artists in the creation and presentation of groundbreaking new work.  ISSUE gratefully acknowledges support from the following organizations:  HBO, BOMB Magazine, Brooklyn Vegan, Sixpoint Craft Ales, and Tillett Lighting Design.

Sharp leads the projects Carbon, Orchestra Carbon, Tectonics and Terraplane, and has pioneered ways of applying fractal geometry, chaos theory, and genetic metaphors to musical composition. His collaborators have included Ensemble Modern; Qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan; Radio-Symphony of Frankfurt; Debbie Harry, Perry Hoberman; blues legends Hubert Sumlin and Pops Staples; jazz greats Jack Dejohnette, Sonny Sharrock, Oliver Lake, and Billy Hart; turntable innovator Christian Marclay; and Bachir Attar of the Master Musicians Of Jahjouka, Morocco.   Sharp’s work was featured in the New Music Stockholm festival (2008), at the Hessischer Rundfunk Klangbiennale (2007) and the Venice Biennale (2003, 2007).

ISSUE Project Room, a registered 501(c)(3) organization, was established in 2003 by visionary artist Suzanne Fiol, and is a vibrant nexus for cutting-edge, multi-disciplinary arts in Brooklyn. ISSUE supports emerging and established experimental artists through more than 200 programs each year including music concerts, literary readings, films, videos, dance, visual and sound art, new media, critical theory lectures and discussions, site-specific work, commissions, educational workshops, master classes, and genre-defying interdisciplinary performances that challenge and expand conventional practices in art.  www.issueprojectroom.org

World Premiere of Trilogy – a new collaborative work by Elliott Sharp (music), Jo Andres (film), and Steve Buscemi (text and narrative)

Velocity of Hue – solo acoustic guitar performance by Elliott Sharp

 

The Boreal – performed by JACK Quartet; commissioned for JACK Quartet by the West-Deutsch Rundfunk, Cologne.

Occam’s Razor for doule quartet – World Premiere performance; commissioned by ISSUE Project Room for JACK Quartet and Sirius Quartet.

Tickets:

 

Committee Chairs: Jo Andres • Steve Buscemi

 

Honorary Co-Chair: Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz

Benefit Committee: Paul Auster • Tony Conrad* • Toni Dove • R. Luke DuBois* • Erin Flannery • Nick Hallett • Sarah Garvey • David Grubbs • Shahzad Ismaily • Charlotta Kotik • Anjali Kumar* • John Latona* • Jonathan Lethem • Robert Longo* • Jeanne Lutfy* • Rick Moody • Stephan Moore • Andrea Reynosa • Linnaea Tillett • Kate Valk • Tom van den Bout • Kevin Vertrees • Anne Waldman • Steve Wax*