Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk
Meredith Jane Monkis an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComposer
Date of Birth20 November 1942
CountryUnited States of America
baritone bass came commercial family fourth generation interests loved mother musical number russia singer singing spoke strong united words
I had a number of interests that were all strands of my childhood. I come from a musical family - I'm a fourth generation singer. My mother was a commercial singer and my grandfather had been a bass baritone who came from Russia to the United States, so music was very strong in my family. I loved to sing; even before I spoke words I was singing melodies.
digging early energies essential feelings human instrument microcosm shades sound voice words
It's a continual excavation process, you could say. It's like being an archeologist of your own instrument as a kind of microcosm of the human voice, of human utterance, of sound itself. By digging into my own voice I'm uncovering feelings and energies for which we don't have words - it's like shades of feeling, early human utterance, and essential human nature.
artists came february grieving group lost november partner process sends talk thinking
A group called Rosetta Life, that sends artists out to hospices in England, came to talk to me in February 2003. I lost my partner of 22 years in November 2002, so I was really in my grieving process - I still am - but I was thinking of nothing but impermanence then.
honesty voice never-quit
That inner voice has both gentleness and clarity. So to get to authenticity, you really keep going down to the bone, to the honesty, and the inevitability of something.
teenager artist intuition
I somehow sensed when I was a teenager that I wanted to do my own work. I was quite clear that I didn't want to be an interpretative kind of artist. I had an intuition about wanting to create my own form, in one way or another, whatever that would be.