ISSUE PROJECT ROOM

Brooklyn music school

January 30, 8:00 PM

ISSUE Project Room celebrates the 20th Anniversary of its Artists-In-Residence (AIR) program throughout 2026 with performances by current residents and returning alumni. This anniversary season highlights AIRs whose work reflects the ongoing evolution of a much broader community of experimental artists who have helped shape ISSUE for over twenty years.

Friday, January 30th at 8pm, ISSUE’s 2026 Winter Season Opening concert, After Nan Shepherd, co-presented with Brooklyn Music School is a work of chamber music composed by 2011 ISSUE AIR, Nate Wooley. Written expressly for its performers, Wooley brings together esteemed vocalist Joan La Barbara (2006 AIR) and NYC-based new music quartet Yarn/Wire (2012 AIR) for a rare shared appearance. 

After Nan Shepherd explores tensions between improvisation and composition, modern and ancient expression, history and memory. Following inspiration from Scottish poet Anna “Nan” Shepherd’s repeated trips into the Cairngorn Mountains—as documented in her groundbreaking book, The Living Mountain—the piece takes four themes and slowly unravels them first, by using traditional methods of compositional variation, and then through increasing amounts of performer agency. This movement from composition to improvisation expands upon other pieces by Wooley, such as Mutual Aid Music and Four Experiments, and pays homage to historical movements in improvisation and indeterminacy in the grand tradition of American experimentalism.

PROGRAM

After Nan Shepherd - Nate Wooley (2025-26)

Nate Wooley, trumpet

Joan La Barbara, voice

Yarn/Wire