Photo by Jonathan Finlayson

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Isabel Crespo Pardo (they/them) is a NYC-based latinx vocalist, improviser-composer, and interdisciplinary artist. Their work actively entangles music, visual art, text and performance, always evolving to reflect the intra/interpersonal spaces they inhabit. Reveling in soft chaos, they embrace openness and specificity to create poetic work(s).

For Crespo, art is a place to gather, to exercise intuition, rigor and delight. They are deeply invested in building generative structures and intentionally inviting others into focused explorations. Crespo’s main compositional vehicle is sinonó, a poemsong trio featuring themself (voice), Lester St. Louis (cello), Henry Fraser (bass). Their affinity for melody, metaphor and abstraction draws them into familiar yet surprising environments, crackling with aliveness. sinonó released their debut album, la espalda y su punto radiante (Subtext Recordings) on March 1, 2024. 

In August 2023, they premiered sin rumbo, an evening length participatory solo piece featuring voice, movement and moving image, as part of their 2023-24 Roulette Residency. In June 2023, they released el rostro (des)cubierto (Lobby Art Editions), a collection of eight deeply intimate pieces for voice, qanun, guitar and bass, that weave composition and improvisation together to explore self and sociality. The development of this music required embracing the challenge of patiently listening to one another, striving towards interdependence, & reveling in all that it requires. They wrote this music for Afarin Nazarijou (qanun), Skyler Hill (guitar), and SeaJun Kwon (bass). In November 2022, Crespo premiered 6., a six-week interdisciplinary installation piece featuring close collaborators Loré Yessuff, Eden Girma, Kwami Winfield, Chris Williams, and Lester St. Louis, at Roulette Intermedium as part of their 2022 Van Lier Fellowship. Making use of screen printing, sculpture and sound, the performance activated contemplation of community and improvisation. In June 2022, they drip, drip, a co-created site-specific piece with edi kwon in the catacombs of the Green-Wood Cemetery.  Inspired by this historic space and sharing in each other’s grief and light, the duo crafted a ritual of transformation through improvisation, dance, poetry, and the use of found objects. In May 2022, they premiered desbordándome, an evening-length large-scale embroidered graphic score composed for sinonó. In this piece, they explore themes of change, interconnectedness, and failure, as well as the expressive and sonic potential of words.

Crespo is consistently involved in collaborative projects. Presently, they are a member of tilt (with Kalia Vandever and Carmen Quill), tombstar (with edi kwon, Zekkereya El-magharbel, and Lesley Mok), toso toso (with Skyler Hill, Kabir Adhiya-Kumar, and Rahul Carlberg), Chatterbox (with Jolee Gordon and Priya Carlberg), and chululu (with Stephani Borgani). In August 2023, they performed in Anna Abondolo and Jon Starks’ ORDER at HERE Arts Theatre. They collaborated as a vocalist-improviser on SECONDARY, a five-channel video installation written and directed by Matthew Barney. This ensemble piece was developed in the collaborative environment of improvisational workshops with movement director David Thomson and composer Jonathan Bepler. The 60-minute piece was on display at Barney’s studio in Spring 2023. Crespo has also had the pleasure of performing works by Brent Michael Davidson, Susan Campos Fonseca, and Raven Chacón.

Institutions and organizations that have recognized and shaped Crespo's artistic trajectory include: The Loghaven Residency, Subtext Records, Dear Life Records, Leaving Records, Lincoln Center’s David Rubinstein Atrium, New Latin Wave, TAK Ensemble, The Stone curated by John Zorn, Roulette Residency supported by the Jerome Foundation, Noguchi Museum, Lobby Art Editions, MATA Festival, New Amsterdam Composers Lab, Van Lier Fellowship, Roulette Intermedium, Metropolis Ensemble, New Music Edmonton, BIPOC Residency for Artists & Culture Workers by Taja Will, Earthdance Contact Improvisation Residency, New England Conservatory (MM), Institute for Musical Arts, Spiderweb Salon, Art & Words Festival, Greater Denton Arts Council, University of North Texas (BM), Siena International Jazz Workshop, Keep an Eye Jazz Workshop at Conservatorium van Amsterdam, The Boysie Lowery Living Jazz Residency, and the Conservatorio de Castella.