ISSUE Project Room
110 Livingston St. (entrance at 22 Boerum Pl.)
Friday, March 4, $50-$250, 7:00
718-330-0313
www.issueprojectroom.org
www.elliottsharp.com
Brooklyn’s ISSUE Project Room has gone through a lot of changes in the last year and a half, beginning with the tragic loss of ifs founder and artistic director, Suzanne Fiol, who passed away in October 2009 at the age of forty-nine after battling cancer. And now the nonprofit organization, which promotes itself as “a vital meeting place for the most disparate forms of creativity whose sole criteria embodies the integrity and spirit of artistic expression and exploration,” is moving from its third-floor space in the Old American Can Factory on Third St. into the McKim, Mead, and White building at 110 Livingston St., which was built in 1925 for the Elks Club and was later home to the New York City Board of Education. On March 4, IPR will be holding its first major event in their future home, a sixtieth birthday celebration for master avant-garde musician, composer, producer, and audiovisual artist Elliott Sharp, a benefit hosted by Jo Andres and Steve Buscemi. The evening begins with a 7:00 VIP reception and the premiere of the multimedia work “Trinity,” featuring music by Sharp, film by Andres, and text and narration by Buscemi, followed by a solo acoustic guitar performance by Sharp of “Velocity of Hue” and Sharp with author Jack Womack and poet Tracie Morris. At 8:00, Sharp will perform “The Boreal,” followed by the IPR commission “Occam’s Razor” performed by JACK Quartet and Sirius Quartet and an after-party from 9:00 to 11:30. The benefit committee, chaired by the husband-and-wife team of Andres and Buscemi along with honorary co-chair Marty Markowitz, features such illustrious writers and artists as Paul Auster, Tony Conrad, R. Luke DuBois, Nick Hallett, Jonathan Lethem, Robert Longo, Rick Moody, Kate Valk, and Anne Waldman. VIP tickets are $250 ($200 tax deductible), while concert-only tickets are $50.