Chan Centre for the Performing Arts and International Arts Initiatives
in association with LIVE Biennial of Performance Art presents

Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble
Saturday 12th November 8:00pm
Chan Centre for the Performing Arts
"Meredith Monk, avant-garde sorceress of offstage theatre" - Village Voice
11

Its most striking feature is the unearthly form ofprimal song that Monk has evolved: I'd call it an
incantation" - New York Magazine

Legendary composer, singer, director/choreographer, Meredith Monk is a pioneer creator of new opera, musical
theatre works, films and installations. Together with her vocal ensemble, Meredith explores music for the voice
as a multi-faceted instrument, expanding the boundaries of traditional vocal music and creating landscapes of
sound that unearth feelings, energies and memories. She has alternately been proclaimed as a "voice of the
future" and "one of America's coolest composers."
With other radical artists of the 1960s, Monk pioneered the use of multi-media in performance, and she
continues to experiment with new technologies and materials to create powerful images in her work. Inspired by
cultures where performance is considered a spiritual discipline with healing and transformative power, she has
sought to re-establish the unity that underlies music, theatre, and dance.
Monk is a pioneer in site-specific performance, creating works such as Juice: A Theater Cantata In 3
Installments (1969) and most recently American Archeology #1: Roosevelt Island (1994). She is also an
accomplished filmmaker who has made a series of award-winning films, including Ellis Island(1981) and her
first feature, Book Of Days (1988), which was aired on PBS, shown at the New York Film Festival and selected
for the Whitney Museum's Biennial. A retrospective art exhibition, Meredith Monk: Archeology of an Artist,
opened at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center in 1996. Other recent art
exhibits include a major installation, Art Performs Life at The Walker Art Center, a show Shrines at the
Frederieke Taylor / TZ' Art Gallery, inclusion in the 2002 Biennial at the Whitney Museum, ev +a 2002 Exhibition
at Limerick City Gallery of Art and a group exhibit Show People at Exit Art. A monograph, Meredith Monk, edited
by Deborah Jowitt was released by Johns Hopkins Press in 1997.
In October 1999 Monk performed a Vocal Offering for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama as part of the World Festival
of Sacred Music in Los Angeles. In July 2000 her music was honored by a three-concert retrospective entitled
Voice Travel as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. Her latest music theatre work, mercy, a collaboration with
visual artist, Ann Hamilton, premiered at the American Dance Festival in July 2001.
The voice has always been at the center of Meredith Monk's work. A pioneer in what is now called extended
vocal technique, Monk has dazzled, startled, provoked and delighted audiences since the 1960s with her
visionary work. Together with the award-winning Vocal Ensemble, Monk has composed and performed music
for the voice as a multi-faceted instrument, expanding the boundaries of traditional vocal music.
They have performed at leading concert halls around the world including Carnegie Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall in
London, and Cologne Philharmonie among others. The Ensemble's artists come from diverse cultural
backgrounds including Asian, African, European and Latin American heritages. The artistic traditions and
backgrounds, which they represent, are equally diverse, ranging from Chinese and Western opera, to Broadway
and musical theatre, to all forms of movement theater and interdisciplinary performance.
For Monk, the voice is a language in itself, which can delineate energies and feelings for which we have no
words. She has invented a stunning vocabulary including her characteristic ululations, multi-phonics, whispers,
slides, range skips and hockets. Her wordless music combines the technical virtuosity of classical music, the
poignancy and directness of folk music and the freedom and flexibility of jazz improvisation.
Tickets available online at Ticketmaster.ca / phone 604-280-3311 or at the Chan Centre Ticket Office (in person
only) $37 - $47 / Further details - www.mundomundo.com
Media Contact: Gwen Kallio sisuproductions@telus.net / 604-215-2345