Monk, Meredith

Meredith Monk (born New York, NY, Nov. 20, 1942) is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, music theater works, films and installations. She pioneered what is now called "extended vocal technique" and "interdisciplinary performance." 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 from Sarah Lawrence College in 1964, Monk has received numerous awards, including the MacArthur Foundation "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. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and holds honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from Bard College, the University of the Arts, the Julliard School, the San Francisco Art Institute and the Boston Conservatory. She is also a fellow of the MacDowell Colony.

Monk’s 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 many films, including La Nouvelle Vague by Jean-Luc Godard and The Big Lebowski by Joel and Ethan Coen. A publishing relationship with Boosey & Hawkes has made Monk's music available to a wider public.

In 1968 Monk founded The House, a company dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach to performance. In 1978 she formed Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble to expand her musical textures and forms. Monk 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, and Bang On A Can All-Stars, among others.

Monk is a pioneer in site-specific performance, creating works such as Juice: A Theater Cantata In 3 Installments (1969) (performed at the Guggenheim Museum), and American Archeology #1: Roosevelt Island (1994). She is also an accomplished filmmaker who has made a series of award-winning films including Ellis Island (1981) and her first feature, Book Of Days (1988), which was aired on PBS, shown at the New York Film Festival and selected for the Whitney Museum’s Biennial. A retrospective art exhibition, Meredith Monk: Archeology of an Artist, opened at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in 1996. Other art exhibits have included Art Performs Life at The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis; Shrines, at the Frederieke Taylor / TZ Art Gallery; ev +a 2002 Exhibition at Limerick City Gallery of Art in Ireland; and a group exhibit, Show People, at Exit Art. A monograph, Meredith Monk, edited by Deborah Jowitt was published by Johns Hopkins Press in 1997.

In October 1999 Monk performed a Vocal Offering for His Holiness the Dalai Lama as part of the World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles. In July 2000 her music was honored by a three concert retrospective entitled Voice Travel as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Her CD mercy was released on the ECM New Series label in November 2002. Monk’s first orchestra piece, Possible Sky, commissioned by Michael Tilson Thomas for the New World Symphony, premiered in April 2003 in Miami. Stringsongs, her first composition for string quartet, was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and had its world premiere at the Barbican Center in January 2005. Monk continues to compose and create new musical and theater works.

From the guide to the Meredith Monk archive, 1959-2006, (The New York Public Library. Music Division.)