"I work in between the cracks, where the voice starts dancing, where the body starts singing, where theatre becomes cinema."
—Meredith Monk
Named Musical America's "Composer of the Year" for 2012, and on the San Francisco Symphony's March schedule with a new chamber work, Meredith Monk's path from 1960s avant-garde cult figure to (almost) household name has included a collection of breakout moments as irreproducible as her idiosyncratic approach to creating sound. Monk's 1995 MacArthur Fellowship was quickly followed by surfacings in pop culture: in the soundtrack of The Big Lebowski and in Björk's addition of Gotham Lullaby to her live performance repertoire.
Perhaps because she writes her music around the unconventional sounds she produces with her own voice, Monk is not typically thought of as a "repertoire" composer. She is associated with live, site-specific performance more than with such traditional artifacts as scores, and has recorded extensively with ECM Records since the early 1980s.
Tonight's concert is a rare premiere event as NEC piano department chair Bruce Brubaker and guest Ursula Oppens perform Meredith Monk's complete music for piano: Railroad (Travel Song), Paris, Window in 7's, St. Petersburg Waltz, Ellis Island, Folkdance, Phantom Waltz.
The program includes works originally written for other instrumentation that Brubaker has transcribed for two pianos, four hands, along with Monk's 1996 Obsolete Objects, also for two pianos.
A Q&A session with Monk, Brubaker, and Oppens follows the performance.
Tower comes from the 1971 "opera epic" Vessel, for 75 voices, electronic organ, dulcimer, and accordion, the music of which was revived recently for three voices and organ.
Parlour Games, from 1988, was originally created in the studio using overdubbing to produce the sound of two pianos—an effect this arrangement endeavors to replicate.
urban march (shadow) comes from the 2001 mercy suite, originally a performance collaboration with artist Ann Hamilton.
Monk's 2006 suite impermanence, which began life as a performance work including movement and video along with vocals and instruments, yields totentanz, a section of the larger work that did not rely on vocals and featured piano, percussion and clarinet.
Read a Boston Globe story about this project.
top photo: Meredith Monk with Bruce Brubaker
photo of mercy by Kevin Fitzsimons
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MILES DAVIS