Tuesday, October 20, 2026 at 8:00 PM
Raphael Rogiński Plays The Velvet Underground
Giorno Poetry Systems
222 Bowery, New York, NY 10012
Wednesday, October 21, 2026 at 7:30 PM
FUJI|||||||||||TA & Ka Baird / Actress / Team Rolfes
Lincoln Center Presents
Alice Tully Hall
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
1887 Broadway, New York, NY 10023
Choose What You Pay
Thursday, October 22, 2026 at 7:30 PM
claire rousay & Martyna Basta / Keith “Giant Claw” Rankin & Julek ploski
Lincoln Center Presents
David Rubenstein Atrium
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts
1941 Broadway at W 65th St, New York, NY 10023
Free
Friday, October 23, 2026 at 7:30 PM
Hania Rani presents Non-Fiction, featuring Sinfonia Varsovia / Księżyc
Lincoln Center Presents
Wu Tsai Theater, David Geffen Hall
10 Lincoln Center Plaza, New York, NY 10023
Choose What You Pay
Saturday, November 14, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler’s River of Fundament
Masonic Hall of New York
71 West 23rd Street, New York, NY 10010
Tickets
Sunday, November 15, 2026 at 2:00 PM
Conversation with Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler
Moderated by Andy Battaglia
Public Records
233 Butler Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Free for River of Fundament ticket holders. First Come, First Served
Unsound New York 2026
This October, Unsound returns to New York. Our first artist announcement focuses a three-night residency at Lincoln Center, presenting a series of U.S. premieres, new commissions, and rare performances. Unsound New York is part of the 2026 Soft Power theme, with festivals also taking place in Warsaw-Kraków (October 2 – 11), and London in late November.
From October 21–23, the Lincoln Center program brings together artists working across experimental sound, contemporary composition, audiovisual performance, virtual theater, and orchestral music. Alongside landmark performances from internationally renowned musicians, the residency also highlights new collaborations between Polish and American artists developed through Unsound commissions and residencies.
Tickets go on sale on September 9, and will be Choose-What-You-Pay as part of the Lincoln Center Presents series.
The opening night at Alice Tully Hall on October 21 begins with the North American premiere of Where Does Fire End?, an Unsound commission by Japanese sound artist FUJI|||||||||||TA and composer-performer Ka Baird, exploring breath, resonance, and voice as physical material. Electronic music pioneer Actress follows with the U.S. premiere of Radical Frame, a new audiovisual work reimagining both recent and earlier material with immersive visuals by Filip Popik and lighting by Shaun Murphy. The evening closes with Mustang Speedrun from virtual performance studio Team Rolfes, combining VR puppetry, motion capture, live musicians, actors, a motorized racing simulator, and live-edited camerawork into a singular theatrical experience. Musicians to be announced soon.
The second evening, presented in the Atrium as part of Lincoln Center’s Festival of Firsts, focuses on artistic exchange between Poland and the United States. claire rousay and Kraków-based composer Martyna Basta present the U.S. performance debut of hotel room, developed after a week spent composing together in rural Poland and accompanied by visuals from Theresa Baumgartner. The program continues with a new audiovisual collaboration between Keith “Giant Claw” Rankin and Warsaw composer Julek ploski, created through an Unsound commission and residency.
The residency concludes in the David Geffen Hall with two very different perspectives on Polish music. Księżyc, whose singular blend of minimalism and Slavic folk traditions has inspired a devoted following for three decades, marks the 30th anniversary of its landmark debut self-titled album. Following is Polish composer, pianist, and singer Hania Rani, whose work moves effortlessly between classical and experimental music. Rani presents the U.S. premiere of Non-Fiction – Piano Concerto in Four Movements with the 45-piece Sinfonia Varsovia, joined by Valentina Magaletti and Jack Wyllie. Partially inspired by the story of the young piano prodigy Josima Feldschuh, who was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II, the work reflects on historical trauma through the lens of present-day horrors in Ukraine and Gaza.
On November 14, 2026, New People’s Cinema Club and Unsound New York will present Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler’s River of Fundament at the Masonic Hall of New York. The eight-hour cinematic experience marks only the second presentation of River of Fundament in New York, following its world premiere at BAM in 2014.
Presented in three acts, River of Fundament will unfold over the course of the evening, with intermissions between each act allowing audiences to move throughout the adjoining spaces of the Masonic Hall. The program runs from 2 PM until 10 PM on Saturday the 14th. The program continues the following day at Public Records with a conversation between Matthew Barney and Jonathan Bepler, moderated by Andy Battaglia and presented as part of Unsound New York’s discourse series, in collaboration with Durations Festival. The conversation is free for River of Fundament ticket holders on a first-come, first-served basis at 2 PM the 15th.
The Polish musician Raphael Rogiński is a guitarist, composer, and improviser, but is also a student of the anthropologies of music. As an ethnographer, he is always looking for sources and tracing things back to where they come from. The electric guitar, for example, is connected not just to jazz or rock ’n’ roll but to thousands of years of musical history.
Over the past few years, Raphael has been analyzing the music of The Velvet Underground. What are the origin points for some of their approaches to making sounds? Where does the wall of sound, the Delta blues, noise, the ballad, or even electric sound itself come from?
This led him to arrange tracks from the first three Velvet Underground albums to be played for solo guitar. Obviously, playing the Velvets using only a solo guitar can’t possibly sound like the Velvets, but that’s not what Raphael is after. His goal is not to reproduce a style but to interpret what lies within the roots of music.
Raphael Roginski Plays the Velvet Underground on Solo Guitar will be the first time he performs this arrangement. He chooses to do that not only in New York City, the physical and spiritual home of the Velvet Underground, but in a room that has a deep connection to the musicians who created the band. Lou Reed himself spent many long nights there, alongside Burroughs, Warhol, and many others.
A conversation between Raphael and Andy Battaglia follows the performance.
FUJI||||||||||TA
FUJI||||||||||TA joins composer-performer Ka Baird for the North American premiere of the Unsound commission Where Does Fire End?, which sculpts breath, pressure, and resonance into tactile sound, exploring the voice as tangible artistic material.
FUJI||||||||||TA is a Japanese sound artist whose work draws on natural phenomena and an interest in hearing unheard sounds and noises. In 2009, Fujita handcrafted an original pipe organ with only 11 pipes and no keyboard. Created without specialized knowledge, the instrument was designed to create a landscape rather than function as a conventional musical instrument.
Inspired by Japanese gagaku, the instrument’s air pump, called “FUIGO,” is based on an ancient blacksmith’s bellows and is operated with the left hand while playing. Because the instrument is one of a kind, Fujita developed his own technique for playing. The water element (with sound synthesized water tanks) has recently been added to his performance repertoire. The music consists of water sounds from multiple aquariums alongside his pipe organ, and his voice.
FUJI||||||||||TA photo by @ Olivier Jaquet
Ka Baird
Ka Baird is an American recording artist, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and performer based in New York City. Using extended voice and microphone techniques along with electronics, feedback, field recordings, and flutes, they explore the outer dimensions of sound through performance. They create a present tense sound with a vigorous, ritualistic delivery that seeks extreme release through physical exertion and psychic extension. They have collaborated with many other artists, both in structured compositions and through their dedicated practice of improvisation.
Known for their raw, boundary-pushing solo performances, Baird explores the physical and expressive possibilities of sound through a practice that moves freely between music, performance, and improvisation.
Actress
Actress will present the U.S. premiere of his new A/V show, Radical Frame, a landmark performance that reshapes and re-engineers material from his new and past output. The immersive visual experience features projected visuals by Polish artist Filip Popik and lighting design by Shaun Murphy.
Darren J. Cunningham, known professionally as Actress, is a British electronic musician and DJ. Since emerging in 2004 with the eccentric No Tricks EP, he has become an influential figure in underground electronic music. Over more than two decades, Cunningham has continually reinvented his sound through enigmatic solo records such as 2024’s Statik and collaborations with artists from across the musical spectrum, most recently synth pioneer Suzanne Ciani.
Team Rolfes
Team Rolfes is a realtime performance and image house based in NYC, led by Sam Rolfes and AndyRolfes, that specializes in figurative animation, VR puppetry and mixed-reality collage. The studio’s practice expresses itself across multiple formats and platforms such as livestream improvisational comedy, live motion-capture animation both on large festival stages and in underground rave bunkers. They have also created print design for fashion collections, album covers, and music videos.
claire rousay
The prolific experimental-ambient artist claire rousay spent a week in 2024 composing in a secluded village in the Polish countryside with Kraków-based composer and musician Martyna Basta. Their resulting joint show and album, hotel room, is a rugged travelogue of loose musical fragments, auto-tuned vocals, and complex atmospheres. The U.S. performance debut of hotel room features projected visuals by German artist Theresa Baumgartner.
Originally trained as a percussionist, LA-based sound artist claire rousay creates deeply personal, emotionally charged sonic works that place everyday sounds under the microscope. Over the last few years, they have collaborated with a wide range of like-minded artists, including more eaze, LEYA, Mabe Fratti, Patrick Shiroishi, and Martyna Basta.
Martyna Basta
Martyna Basta is a Polish composer and musician who was classically trained in guitar before moving away from academic music. After performing a Mauro Giuliani concerto and selling her beloved instrument, she used the money to buy a synthesizer and began exploring field recordings, voice, electronics, and unconventional approaches to instrumentation.
After self-releasing a series of recordings on Bandcamp, Basta’s debut album proper, Making Eye Contact With Solitude, appeared on Slovakia’s Warm Winters label and was praised for its subtlety and restraint. Her music combines processed violin, zither and harpsichord, vocals, and environmental recordings to create intimate, mysterious sound worlds.
Keith “Giant Claw” Rankin
New collaboration between American electronic producer Keith “Giant Claw” Rankin, head of the pioneering label Orange Milk Records, and Warsaw soundtrack composer and performer Julek ploski. Together, they present a new A/V work called CONTROL FREAK, the result of an Unsound-commission and residency in Warsaw.
Giant Claw is the musical project of an American electronic musician, visual artist and Orange Milk Records co-founder Keith Rankin. His music has explored a wide range of electronic styles since the early 2010s, both as Giant Claw and as a member of death’s dynamic shroud and Cream Juice. Rankin is also known for his visual art, which has appeared on album covers by artists including Rico Nasty and in publications such as MIT Technology Review
Julek ploski
Julek ploski is a Polish electronic music producer whose work moves fluidly between maximalist, hyper-digital chaos and tender emotional introspection. He combines cinematic and symphonic-opera grandeur, high-octane rave beats, lyrical piano melodies, and elements of trap and metal.
Known for his distinctive audiovisual performances, ploski pairs his music with surreal, absurdist digital animations that he creates himself. His work moves between euphoric club energy, paranoid urgency, and intimate introspection, creating a distinctive aesthetic that draws on cinematic melodrama and Internet nostalgia.
Hania Rani presents Non-Fiction
Rani, who shifts effortlessly between classical and experimental music, was awarded the European Film Award for Best Composer for her score for Joachim Trier’s Academy Award-winning movie Sentimental Value. Rani’s Non-Fiction: Piano Concerto in Four Movements is an empathic and moving work for orchestra partially inspired by the story of the young music prodigy Josima Feldschuh, who was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. Rani explores Feldschuh’s short life through the lens of contemporary Ukraine and Gaza. Non-Fiction will be performed by Rani and the Warsaw-based 45-piece Sinfonia Varsovia with special guest drummer Valentina Magaletti and saxophonist Jack Wyllie.
Hania Rani’s music grabs you — its gravitational pull sucks you into a hypnotic trance, regardless of your will. Pianist, composer, and vocalist, she has emerged as a genre-blending nonconformist who nevertheless has made a name for herself interweaving classical, jazz, and electronic influences. Born in 1990 in Gdańsk, Poland, Hania began playing the piano at age seven. She eventually trained as a classical pianist in Warsaw and later pursued studies in Berlin, where she began to explore electronic music. Recently, she has settled in London.
Rani is a quiet star — more interested in connection than fame or spectacle – and constantly seeks the new in her work, challenging herself and her audience in an active process of renewal and regeneration. She’s since progressed swiftly through a series encompassing solo piano albums like 2019’s Esja, 2023’s more electronically inclined Ghosts, not to mention film and theater scores, art installations, even her first piano concerto.
It was during the second half of the 2010s that Rani moved to Berlin to continue her studies at Hanns Eisler Hochschule für Musikwhere she really developed as a composer, taking counterpoint and contemporary music classes as well as studying acoustics and collaborating with contemporary opera and theatr directors, as well as poets. It was also in Berlin where Rani would start to explore electronic music and experience a growing sense of freedom, expanding what felt possible as a pianist and performer.
Hania Rani, photo by @ Sian O’Connor
Sinfonia Varsovia
Formed in 1984, Sinfonia Varsovia is a cultural institution jointly managed by the Capital City of Warsaw and the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage. The institution presents symphonic and chamber concerts, festivals, competitions, and other events aimed at popularizing music.
Its broad cultural offering includes Sinfonia Varsovia Plays Chamber Music, events for young listeners such as Smykofonie on Grochowska Street and Mornings, and concerts promoting new Polish symphonic music, including the Resounds series and Experimental Tuesdays. Sinfonia Varsovia also organizes the Mad About Music festival and the Franciszek Wybrańczyk Sinfonia Varsovia For Its City Festival.
Sinfonia Varsovia photo by @ Mirosław Pietruszyński
Księżyc
The final evening will open with a rare concert from Księżyc. The band’s eerily beautiful, self-titled 1996 debut LP has earned them a devoted cult following in Europe. In celebration of the album’s 30th anniversary, Księżyc will perform a show based around the album, entitled The Eternal Circle. Special guests, soon to be announced, will join them on stage.
Księżyc, Polish for “the Moon,” is a legendary Polish underground band founded in the early 1990s. The group has roots in avant-garde theater, traditional Slavic folk music, and minimalism, and its distinctive experimental sound combines vocals, acoustic instruments, and tape with influences from psychedelia. The group released its classic self-titled album on OBUH before disbanding shortly afterward.
Księżyc remained inactive for nearly two decades, with its music circulating mainly through low-budget records, cassettes, and the Internet. The group returned to the stage at Unsound 2014 in Kraków and has since attracted a much wider audience, including many listeners who do not speak Polish.
Valentina Magaletti
Valentina Magaletti is a queer drummer, composer, multi-instrumentalist, and curator who treats percussion as a political and poetic instrument—an unruly body that refuses straight lines, fixed identities, and normative rhythms. Her work dismantles the boundaries between noise, ritual, and music, transforming ceramics, found objects, and skin-based textures into tools for resistance and queer world-building.
Magaletti moves fluidly between experimental, improvised, and popular music, collaborating with artists including Loraine James,upsammy,Nidia, Mica Levi, Lafawndah, Nicolas Jaar, Philip Selway(Radiohead),Deb Googe(MBV),Thurston Moore,Jandek, Fred Frith,Pat Thomas and Floating Point to name a few. Yet it is in her solo practice—most notably A Queer Anthology of Drums—that her politics become most explicit: a collage of breath, field recordings, and percussive debris that explores queer embodiment as both vulnerability and defiance.
Jack Wyllie
Saxophonist, flautist and composer, Jack Wyllie, is perhaps best known as the co-founder of Mercury Prize nominated wide-screen minimalists Portico Quartet and as 1/3 of revelatory, ambient improvising trio Szun Waves, but his distinctive voice on flute, soprano and tenor saxophones mark him out as a key figure in contemporary music. A keen collaborator whose projects have drawn on ambient, Fourth-world, electronica and modern classical influences, Eternal Spring is the first recording under his own name.
Eternal Spring, which features collaborators as diverse as erstwhile Portico Quartet band mates drummer Duncan Bellamy and bassist Milo Fitzpatrick, iconoclastic Polish artist Hania Rani, cellist Dobrawa Czocher and Australian mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean, draws inspiration from both Wyllie’s love of verdant nature but also the idea of a constant, flickering sense of hope and his compositions balance elevating melodies and cyclical rhythms while unashamedly reaching for something hopeful and beautiful.
Matthew Barney
Matthew Barney is an American contemporary artist and film director who works in the fields of sculpture, film, photography and drawing. His works explore connections among geography, biology, geology and mythology as well as notable themes of sex, intercourse, the human body, and conflict. Since the late 1980s Matthew Barney has employed a range of mediums, including film, video installation, drawing, and sculpture, to address themes such as the limitations of the body, androgyny, eroticism, and ritual. A former athlete, Barney has maintained an interest in bodily transformation that is conveyed through a sophisticated and idiosyncratic visual language. In the earliest works in his DRAWING RESTRAINT series, begun in 1987, the artist illustrated the principle of hypertrophy (muscles growing stronger in response to resistance) by fashioning restraints, challenges, and experiments for himself in his studio— “facilities to defeat the facility of drawing,” as he put it. As the series progressed, the imagery became increasingly elaborate, from the film sets, narratives, and costuming to the physical feats performed.
Jonathan Bepler
A composer, singer, and multi-instrumentalist, Jonathan Bepler embraces classical traditions, improvisation, and unconventional methods. His collaborations with musical ensembles, choreographers, and filmmakers alike have led him to perform and present new work in opera houses, theaters, and museums around the world. As a baritone vocalist, he has performed opera, recital, oratorio, and new music. Bepler composes music for dance and theater and has led ensembles of both improvised and pre-composed music in the U.S. and Europe. As composer of experimental music, he is perhaps best known for his collaborative work with artists and choreographers, including many years of work with visual artist Matthew Barney.
Unsound focuses on a broad swath of contemporary music — emerging, experimental, and leftfield — that resists typical genre constraints. It has developed a reputation for identifying innovative scenes and radical sounds.
Unsound New York first took place in 2010 with major acclaim from press and fans alike. The festival’s broad remit to combine live events with club events, the known with the unknown, and to include a good number of under-exposed (at that time) Polish and Eastern European acts was a winner. The Sunday New York Times declared ‘Hello, New York: Avant Garde Eastern Europe’ with a full-page feature that included festival co-founder Mat Schulz noting “The fact that (Unsound is) coming from Krakow in a sense makes it more interesting. It’s not what you would expect, and it makes a comment about the way that culture now doesn’t necessarily come from these precise points you’d think it would come from. That’s what this festival is about as well: disrupting preconceived notions of a lot of different types, not only about what a country or a city is, or what cultural centers are, but also what music is and how different kinds of music can be connected. That’s really at the heart of the whole enterprise.” As well as spotlighting emerging artists, Unsound also commissions new shows and encourages cross-border collaborations, adapts and reimagines abandoned spaces for concerts and club nights, manages cutting-edge artists, and is known for its sound-inspired Ephemera perfume project. Unsound is also a platform, commissioning and releasing new music and books.
Unsound is co-organized and co-presented by Fundacja Tone – Muzyka i Nowe Formy Sztuki and the Polish Cultural Institute New York. This project is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland from the Culture Promotion Fund in partnership with the Adam Mickiewicz Institute. The main partner of Unsound Web KRK – NYC is the Polish National Foundation.Concerts at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts are part of the Lincoln Center Presents Season. Curated by Mat Schulz, Unsound Artistic Director.
