THE STORY OF A RENAISSANCE WOMAN Remember the performers whose red painted construction boots swung over the balconies circling the Guggenheim Museum (“Juice”). Or the sight of a dozen horseback riders flying across the field at the Connecticut College American Dance Festival (“Needle-Brain Lloyd and The Systems Kid: A Live Movie”). The figure of Meredith Monk, a small body silhouetted by the blazing light of a welder’s torch in a dark parking lot on Wooster Street (“Vessel”). Monk seated opposite Ann Hamilton at a table below a glowing screen capturing the lead residue left by Hamilton’s moving pencil (“mercy”). Or Michael Tilson Thomas, his back to the audience as he raises his baton to begin the world premiere of Monk’s first symphonic work performed by the 90 musicians in the New World Symphony Orchestra (“Possible Sky”). Composer. Musician. Vocalist. Choreographer. Filmmaker. Dancer. Director.For 40 years Meredith Monk has deftly crisscrossed the fault lines between disciplines, resolutely establishing a category for the non-categorical: multi-disciplinary arts. After four decades of non-stop revolutionary work, Monk, an icon for the hip of all ages, will be celebrated with performances, recordings, art exhibitions, premieres and concerts over the next year—all over the world. The first of the major events, “Dance to Monk,” takes place at Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, November 19---, 20, 21 and 23, where over the course of four days some of the world’s greatest choreographers will present new works especially created to Monk’s music. Presented by Danspace Project and The House Foundation for the Arts, the first three days of the ongoing celebration (November 19–21) will feature premieres by Ann Carlson (performed by the Axis Dance Company), Seán Curran, Molissa Fenley and Dancers, Bill T. Jones (on video), Dana Reitz and Doug Varone. The November 23 performance, a benefit for The House Foundation, will feature world premieres by Elizabeth Streb, Lar Lubovitch Dance Company, Eiko & Koma and Phoebe Neville who will perform to recordings of Monk’s music. Monk and Ching Gonzalez will perform excerpts from Monk and Ping Chong’s 1972 classic “Paris.” And a final highlight: Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble will perform live with the Merce Cunningham Dance Company. Valda Setterfield, David Gordon and Ain Gordon will serve as Masters of Ceremony. A display of Monk’s etchings, entitled “Vocal Gestures,” will be shown at The Frederieke Taylor Gallery, January 7–February 5, 2005. These prints, suggesting the movement of the sound they notate, can be sung or simply observed for their graphic beauty. The portfolio of nine prints is published by Edition Jacob Samuel. The world premiere of Monk’s first string quartet (title to come) will be presented by the Kronos Quartet on January 22, 2005 at the Barbican Center in London. In it, the ever-adventurous Monk explores new ways of using strings to create unexpected textures in sound in much the same pioneering way she has created new sounds for the voice through her invention of “extended vocal technique.” Commissioned for Kronos, by The Carnegie Hall Corporation, the Barbican Center, the National Endowment for the Arts and Alta Tingle, the quartet will receive its New York premiere at Zankel Hall on February 5, 2005. Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble will make its Joe’s Pub debut on May 20, 2005. Program to be announced. The anniversary year will conclude with two celebration events at Carnegie Hall in November 2005 and January 2006. Details to come. Other events threaded through the year include Monk in performance at the Asian Cultural Council Benefit at Jazz at Lincoln Center (November 10) and at the Rubin Museum of Art (November 20); a tribute to Monk by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble performer Theo Bleckmann at BAMcafé Live on December 18; performances by Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble at the New Moves Festival at Theatre Royal in Glasgow, Scotland (March 12) and at the Look & Listen Festival in New York City (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.” 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. 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. DETAILS FOR NEW YORK SHOWS (as of press time): Danspace Project: Performances take place at 8:30pm. Tickets are $20, and may be reserved by calling 212-674-8194 or at www.danspaceproject.org. The benefit evening is on November 23; tickets to the 6:30pm toast and 7:30pm performance at St. Mark’s Church, as well as to the post-performance party at Second Nature range from $100–$5,000 and are available only through The House Foundation, by contacting Hallie Hobson at 212-904-1330 x23 or hobson@meredithmonk.org. St. Mark’s Church is located at 131 East 10th Street (at 2nd Avenue). Second Nature is located at 221 2nd Avenue (between 13th and 14th Streets). Frederieke Taylor Gallery: The hours are Tuesday–Saturday, 11am–6pm. The Gallery is located at 535 West 22nd Street on the 6th floor, and may be contacted by calling 646-230-0992. Judy & Arthur Zankel Hall: The curtain for the performance by the Kronos Quartet is at 7:30pm. Tickets are $30–$45 and are available at the box office, by calling 212-247-7800 or online at www.carnegiehall.org. Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall is located at the corner of 57th Street and 7th Avenue. Joe’s Pub: The evening curtains for the performance at Joe’s Pub are at 7pm and 9:30pm. Tickets are available at the box office, by calling 212-239-6200 or at www.telecharge.com. Joe’s Pub at The Joseph Papp Public Theater is located at 425 Lafayette Street. ###
The House Foundation for the
Arts and Meredith Monk’s 40th Anniversary Season is made possible,
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