Meet ICDS6 Keynote: Meredith Monk
Photo credit: F Scott Schaefer
Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director, choreographer, filmmaker and creator of new-opera theatre music works, films and installations.
Recognized as one of the most unique and influential artists of our time, she is a pioneer of what is now called "extended vocal technique" and "interdisciplinary performance". Over the last six decades Ms. Monk has been hailed as one of National Public Radio's 50 Great Voices and "one of America's coolest composers".
Her numerous awards and honors include a MacArthur Fellowship and an Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters from the Republic of France. Celebrated internationally, her work has been presented at major venues throughout the world. Monk has recorded with the ECM New Series label since 1981, and was recently honored with a 13-disc box set of her work - Meredith Monk: The Recordings, which includes the 2008 GRAMMY-nominated impermanence. Selected scores of her work are available through Boosey & Hawkes.
In conjunction with her 50th Season of creating and performing, Monk was appointed the 2014-15 Richard and Barbara Debs Composers Chair at Carnegie Hall. Since that time she has received three of the highest honors bestowed on a living artist in the United States: induction into the Academy of Arts and Letters (2019), the 2017 Dorothy and Lilian Gish Prize and a 2015 National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama. Monk's newest work, Indra's Net, is scheduled to premier in the Holland Festival this June and is the third part of a trilogy of music-theatre works exploring our independent relationship with nature, following the highly acclaimed On Behalf of Nature (2013) and Cellular Songs (2018).