MEREDITH MONK’S “STRINGSONGS”
RECEIVES WORLD
PREMIERE PERFORMANCE BY THE KRONOS QUARTET AT
THE BARBICAN CENTER IN LONDON ON JANUARY 22 AND AT
ZANKEL HALL IN NEW YORK CITY ON FEBRUARY 5;
MUSIC MARKS MONK’S FIRST STRING QUARTET
The world premiere
of Meredith Monk’s “Stringsongs” will be presented
by the Kronos Quartet at the Barbican Center in London on January
22, and then at Zankel Hall in New York City on February 5.
A highlight of Monk’s 40th
anniversary celebration, the creation of “Stringsongs,”
commissioned by Kronos, marks the composer’s first work for
a string quartet. The composition is in four movements (cliff light;
tendrils; obsidian chorale; and phantom strings), each characterized
by its own emotional life. In much the same way that Monk continues
to explore new possibilities for the voice, “Stringsongs”
investigates the potential of stringed instruments to create unexpected
textures and sound. The quartet moves from explosions of light to
tender, shimmering sadness to pulsing darkness concluding with bright
rhythmic promise.
After the Carnegie premiere, Monk
will travel to Scotland with Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble
for a performance at the New Moves Festival at Theatre Royal in
Glasgow (March 12) and return to New York City for the Look &
Listen Festival (April 14). All the while, Monk will be working
on new music for the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble and a new music
theater piece, “The Impermanence Project.” She will
be next seen in New York City when Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble
makes its Joe’s Pub debut on May 20.
A fourth generation singer in her
family, Monk has been hailed as a “magician of the voice”
for her invention of a new vocabulary including her ululations,
multi-phonics, whispers, slides, range skips and hockets, which
has expanded the boundaries of traditional vocal music.
Monk has made more than a dozen recordings,
most of which are on the ECM New Series label, including her full-length
opera, “ATLAS: an opera in three parts.” 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. In July
2000, Monk’s music was honored by a three-concert retrospective
entitled “Voice Travel” as part of the Lincoln Center
Festival.
Among her most recent works is “mercy,” a music theater
piece she created in collaboration with visual artist Ann Hamilton,
which premiered at the American Dance Festival in July 2001 and
was performed at BAM’s 2002 Next Wave Series, among other
venues. Monk’s first orchestra piece “Possible Sky,”
commissioned by Michael Tilson Thomas for the New World Symphony,
premiered in April 2003 in Miami. 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.
Monk 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,
released theatrically and shown at the New York Film Festival. Her
“16 Millimeter Earrings” (1966) was part of the Whitney
Museum’s “American Century: Art and Culture, 1950–2000”
exhibit.
Her career was celebrated as part
of “Art Performs Life,” a major exhibition of her work
at The Walker Art Center in Minneapolis in summer 1998; at “Shrines”
at Frederieke Taylor/TZ Art Gallery in April 1999; and at the New
York Public Library for the Performing Arts, which held a major
retrospective of her career in 1996. Her work has also been included
in the 1991 and 2002 Biennials at the Whitney Museum of American
Art. In a show entitled “Vocal Gestures,” Monk’s
etchings are currently on display at Frederieke Taylor Gallery through
February 5.
The creator of over 150 works since
graduating from Sarah Lawrence College in 1964, Monk is the recipient
of numerous honors including a MacArthur “Genius” Award,
two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Brandeis Creative Arts Award, three
Obies (including an award for Sustained Achievement), two Villager
Awards, a Bessie Award for Sustained Creative Achievement, the 1986
National Music Theatre Award, sixteen ASCAP Awards for Musical Composition,
the 1992 Dance Magazine Award and the 1996 Samuel H. Scripps/American
Dance Festival Award. She holds honorary Doctor of Arts degrees
from Bard College and the University of the Arts, as well as from
The Juilliard School, the San Francisco Art Institute and the Boston
Conservatory.
###
Meredith Monk’s “Stringsongs”
was commissioned for the Kronos Quartet by the Barbican, London,
UK and The Carnegie Hall Corporation. Additional funds for the project
were provided by the National Endowment for the Arts and Alta Tingle.
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