Meredith Monk

Awards and Honors: 1995 MacArthur “Genius” Award; two Guggenheim Fellowships; a Brandeis Creative Arts Award; three “Obies” (including an award for Sustained Achievement); two Villager Awards; 2 “Bessie” Awards for Sustained Creative Achievement; the 1986 National Music Theatre Award; sixteen ASCAP Awards for Musical Composition and the 2005 ASCAP Concert Music Award; honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from Bard College, the University of the Arts, The Julliard School, and the San Francisco Art Institute; German Critics Prize for Best Records of 1981 and 1986 (for her recordings of Dolmen Music and Our Lady of Late: The Vanguard Tapes)

Recordings: Dolmen Music (ECM New Series), Our Lady of Late: The Vanguard Tapes (Wergo), mercy (ECM New Series)

Music for film: La Nouvelle Vague directed by Jean-Luc Godard and The Big Lebowski by Joel and Ethan Coen

Formed: Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble

Music has been performed by: San Francisco Symphony Chorus, Musica Sacra, The Pacific Mozart Ensemble, Double Edge, and Bang on a Can All-Stars

Performances: Vocal Offering for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, as part of the World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles in 1999; a three-concert retrospective entitled Voice Travel as part of the Lincoln Center Festival in 2000; Possible Sky, commissioned by Michael Tilson Thomas for the New World Symphony, premiered in April 2003 in Miami; Stringsongs, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet, premiered at the Barbican Center in January 2005.

Current projects: include a new work for the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble, a new music theatre piece, Impermanence, and a new piece for her Vocal Ensemble and the Kronos Quartet called Songs of Ascension in collaboration with visual artist Ann Hamilton.

Quote: “When the time comes, perhaps a hundred years from now, to tally up achievements in the performing arts during the last third of the 20th century, one name that seems sure to loom large is that of Meredith Monk. In originality, in scope, in depth, there are few to rival her.” — The Washington Post

Web site: www.meredithmonk.org