Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble in Concert
The festival is delighted to be part of the 40th Anniversary Season celebrating one of Americas most eclectic and progressive artists. Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, musical theatre works, films and site-specific 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, all in an effort to discover and weave together new modes of perception. Her groundbreaking explorations of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expand the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies and memories for which we have no words. During a career spanning forty years audiences and critics worldwide have rightly proclaimed Meredith Monk as a major creative force and one of Americas coolest composers.
Monk works like a mosaicist, assembling small vivid fragments that resonate together in startling ways. Deborah Jowitt, The New York Time Magazine
Monk conjures up a spectrum of colourful and evocative sounds from her one-of-a-kind vocal instrument. The results are haunting, poignant, terrifying and sometimes screamingly funny. A musician of boundless imagination and vision (she) took the audience into enchanting, compassionate and disturbing worlds. Donald Rosenberg
Meredith Monks music can be found on the ECM New Series label.
Vocal Programme:
I. MUSIC FOR UNACCOMPANIED VOICE
Selections from SONGS FROM THE HILL (1977);
LIGHT SONGS (1988), and VOLCANO SONGS (1994)
II. SELECTIONS from FACING NORTH (1990)
III. MUSIC SELECTIONS FROM Mercy (2001)
Braid 1, Leaping Song, Braid 2, Woman at the Door, Urban March, Core Chant
running time - 90 mins with interval
Program subject to change
There will be a post performance discussion with Meredith Monk and her ensemble.