The world premiere of Meredith Monk’s first symphonic work,
“Possible Sky,” commissioned by Michael Tilson Thomas
and the New World Symphony, will be presented by the NWS at the
Lincoln Theater in Miami Beach, FL on April 4. The premiere is a
special highlight of a full evening celebration of Ms. Monk’s
instrumental and vocal work. The orchestra’s music director
Michael Tilson Thomas will conduct.
“Possible Sky” calls upon the full orchestra of 83 musicians,
marking Ms. Monk’s first work of such dimension and musical
complexity. Ms. Monk’s composition process included the application
of her extended vocal techniques to the creation of new possibilities
for instrumental sound. Monk worked with groups of artists from
the Miami-based orchestra over a two year period, bringing them
sketches of material with which she and the musicians experimented,
searching for the new and unexpected. She spent the last year composing
the work. The result is “Possible Sky.”
The evening will also feature performances by Meredith Monk and
Theo Bleckmann in excerpts from “Facing North.” Additionally,
the program will feature selections from her 1984 opera “The
Games,” including Panda Chant I performed by Monk, Bleckmann
and Allison Sniffin and Panda Chant 2 with the same performers and
a small instrumental group from the orchestra, who will then perform
“The Memory Song” from the opera.
ABOUT MEREDITH MONK: 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 ground
breaking 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 “voice of the future” and “one of America’s
coolest composers.” During a career that spans more than 35
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 throughout her career, 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, a “Bessie”
for Sustained Creative Achievement, the 1986 National Music Theatre
Award, sixteen ASCAP Awards for Musical Composition and the 1992
Dance Magazine Award. She 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. 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. A new publishing relationship with
Boosey & Hawkes makes Meredith Monk's music available to a wider
public for the first time.
In 1968 Ms. 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. She has made
more than a dozen recordings, most of which are on the ECM New Series
label. Her most recent recording mercy was released in October 2002.
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) and most recently
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 recent art exhibits are comprised of a major installation,
Art Performs Life at The Walker Art Center, a show “Shrines”
at the Frederieke Taylor / TZ’ Art Gallery, inclusion in the
2002 Biennial at the Whitney Museum, ev +a 2002 Exhibition at Limerick
City Gallery of Art and a group exhibit Show People at Exit Art.
A monograph, Meredith Monk, edited by Deborah Jowitt was released
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 latest music theater work, mercy, a collaboration
with visual artist, Ann Hamilton, premiered at the American Dance
Festival in July 2001 and after a national tour played to sold-out
houses at the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival
in December 2002. All tickets to the Meredith Monk/New World Symphony
concert are $15, and are available by calling 305-673-3331. The
Lincoln Theatre is located at 541 Lincoln Road in Miami Beach.
###
Possible Sky was commissioned
by New World Symphony and funded by a grant from the Kirk Foundation.
This concert is sponsored in part by ICE, a Sonoma Companies Condominium
Development, and SushiSamba Dromo.
031403
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