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Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, music theater works, films and installations. A pioneer in what is now called "extended vocal technique" and "interdisciplinary performance," Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound in an effort to discover and weave together new modes of perception. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words. She has alternately been proclaimed as a "magician of the voice" and "one of America's coolest composers." During a career that spans more than 40 years she has been acclaimed by audiences and critics as a major creative force in the performing arts.

Since graduating Sarah Lawrence College in 1964, Monk has received numerous awards including the prestigious MacArthur "Genius" Award in 1995, two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Brandeis Creative Arts Award, three "Obies" (including an award for Sustained Achievement), two Villager Awards, two "Bessie" awards for Sustained Creative Achievement, the 1986 National Music Theatre Award, the 1992 Dance Magazine Award, and a 2005 ASCAP Concert Music Award. In 2006 she was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and named a United States Artists Fellow, and holds honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from Bard College, the University of the Arts, The Juilliard School, the San Francisco Art Institute and the Boston Conservatory. Her recordings Dolmen Music (ECM New Series) and Our Lady of Late: The Vanguard Tapes (Wergo) were honored with the German Critics Prize for Best Records of 1981 and 1986. Her music has been heard in numerous films, including La Nouvelle Vague by Jean-Luc Godard and The Big Lebowski by Joel and Ethan Coen. Monk's publishing relationship with Boosey & Hawkes, begun in 2000, has helped make her scores available to a wider public.

In 1968 Ms. Monk founded The House, a company dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach to performance. In 1978 she formed Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble to expand her musical textures and forms. She has made more than a dozen recordings, most of which are on the ECM New Series label. Her music has been performed by numerous soloists and groups including The Chorus of the San Francisco Symphony, Musica Sacra, The Pacific Mozart Ensemble, Double Edge, Björk, and Bang On A Can All-Stars, among others.

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Live From New York

Meredith Monk, Will Mason & The Fabulous Thunderbirds

Read "Meredith Monk, Will Mason & The Fabulous Thunderbirds" reviewed by Martin Longley


Meredith Monk Brooklyn Academy Of Music March 18, 2018 The multivalent Meredith Monk gave the world premiere of her Cellular Songs work at BAM over five days. Your scribe, burdened by a heavy rotation of electronic seances, live soundtrack silent movies and late night jazz jointing, opted for the Sunday matinee of this 75 minute song, movement, and visuals piece: its ultimate performance, at least for this run. Surely, by this time, Monk had ...

2
Album Review

Meredith Monk: Piano Songs

Read "Piano Songs" reviewed by Giuseppe Segala


Le cose più interessanti prodotte da Meredith Monk si collocano sul piano della voce, della sua interdipendenza con il corpo, con la performance, la spazialità. Le tecniche più spericolate e gli anfratti più nascosti della fisicità, della sensualità e della spiritualità sono stati affrontati dall'artista statunitense con lo strumento vocale che passa attraverso lo spazio del corpo e della scena, che mescola tali spazi. “Non si ascolta Meredith Monk (almeno: nel senso in cui l'ascolto comporta un distacco, una certa ...

236
Album Review

Meredith Monk: impermanence

Read "impermanence" reviewed by Budd Kopman


impermanence is the ninth recording by Meredith Monk for ECM, six years removed from her previous recording, mercy (ECM, 2002). An interdisciplinary artist whose works combine vocals (with extended techniques that take it beyond singing), instrumental composition, dance and video, Monk's arrangements for CD of the original form of impermanence follow the strategy she used on mercy whereby much was significantly altered for a pure listening experience. Although the subjects of living life, aging and death have ...

330
Album Review

Meredith Monk: Mercy

Read "Mercy" reviewed by Budd Kopman


Interdisciplinary artist Meredith Monk recorded mercy shortly before her sixtieth birthday in the year 2002, making it the eighth in a series of releases on the ECM New Series reaching back to Dolmen Music of 1981. The original production was a multi-media stage work done with installation artist Ann Hamilton, while the recording involved much reworking of individual sections and parts including the addition of clarinet parts played by Bohdan Hilash. The result is a highly unified ...

291
Album Review

Meredith Monk: impermanence

Read "impermanence" reviewed by John Kelman


The human voice may well be the most expressive instrument of all, capable of the subtlest of nuance and the most dramatic exclamation, but few have explored its full range as thoroughly as Meredith Monk. Over the course of eight ECM albums beginning with Dolmen Music (ECM, 1981) Monk--a composer, filmmaker, vocalist and pianist--has built a body of work that's been a significant reference point for multidisciplinary singers including America's Theo Bleckmann and Norway's Sidsel Endresen, whose One (Sofa, 2007) ...

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Performance / Tour

Meredith Monk's June Concerts in New York

Meredith Monk's June Concerts in New York

Source: ECM records

3 Legged Dog Art and Technology Center presented by Dance Theater Workshop (New York, NY) June 7th, 8th, 10th and 11th Songs of Ascension is a major new recording from composer Meredith Monk and her vocal ensemble. Written in 2008, it is conceived as a continuous composition, a departure from Monk's earlier collaged or episodic extended works. In recent years Meredith Monk's been expanding into the worlds of orchestra and string quartet. On “Songs of Ascension" she teams up with ...

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Recording

Meredith Monk "Song of Ascension"

Meredith Monk "Song of Ascension"

Source: ECM Records

Meredith Monk Songs of Ascension Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble Todd Reynolds String Quartet M6 Voices Montclair State University Singers “Songs of Ascension" is a major new recording from composer Meredith Monk and her vocal ensemble. Written in 2008, it is conceived as a continuous composition, a departure from Monk's earlier collaged or episodic extended works. In recent years Meredith Monk's been expanding into the worlds of orchestra and string quartet. On “Songs of ...

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Music

Recordings: As Leader | As Sideperson

Piano Songs

ECM Records
2014

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Impermanence

ECM Records
2009

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impermanence

ECM Records
2008

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Mercy

ECM Records
2008

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Key

ECM Records
1995

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Dolmen Music

ECM Records
1981

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