Extraordinary series from Carnegie Hall to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco
Composer, performer, vocalist, director, choreographer and MacDowell Fellow Meredith Monk concluded her 50th season of performing with an anniversary concert at Zankel Hall at Carnegie Hall on May 2. The six-month celebration began on November 20 (her 72nd birthday) in New York with a concert of her Piano Songsperformed by Ursula Oppens and Bruce Brubaker at Le Poisson Rouge – coinciding with her holding the 2014–2015 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall – and continued into May, with performances highlighting Monk’s ongoing work as a composer and performer.
“It’s been an extraordinary year,” she said of the time spent preparing and performing, “and I’m so fortunate that each concert has exemplified a different aspect of my work. It’s been a chance for me to share the range of my music.”
The concerts have featured repertoire that resonates with her seven MacDowell Colony residencies.
“Mostly at MacDowell I’ve begun things,” said Monk, who was last here in 2007. “It’s a perfect place for searching and experimenting.”
Performances since November included members of her Vocal Ensemble with the American Composers Orchestra performing Night, which was written at MacDowell in 1996 in Watson Studio; the Vocal Ensemble performing selections from Songs of Ascension, which was begun at MacDowell in the winter of 2007; and included selections from Mercy (2002) and a duet from Volcano Songs (1997), both of which she counts among her MacDowell compositions.
“MacDowell is always a kind of paradise. I love having time alone to work, but it’s very inspiring to come to dinner and find out what a writer or visual artist is working on,” she said. “It’s really an ideal place for artists. When you do something out of love and you give that to the world, it has a healing element and The Colony has been very, very generous to artists in making that possible.”
While the 50th Anniversary celebration took in the breadth of Monk’s creativity since 1972, it was not simply a retrospective. The concerts featured new works, including her meditation on the fragility of the earth’s ecology, On Behalf of Nature, which received its New York premiere at BAM’s Next Wave Festival, as well as Backlight, written for seven instruments and one voice for Ensemble ACJW — a collaboration between Carnegie Hall, The Juilliard School, the Weill Music Institute as well as the New York City Department of Education.
The celebration of Monk’s musical achievements coincided with her recently being named Officier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the Republic of France, and the November 2014 publication of a book of interviews, Conversations with Meredith Monk, by arts critic and Performing Arts Journal editor Bonnie Marranca.
