The Walker Art Center presents Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble: Cellular Songs
“As [Meredith Monk] sang, there was a palpable sense of love and joy between her and the audience that spoke volumes. An antidote to the troubled times we live in.” —Financial Times
Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble: Cellular Songs
Thursday October 4, Friday October 5, Saturday October 6
McGuire Theater, 8pm
When Meredith Monk sings, her voice transports listeners out of time and into a dimension where sound is the currency of communication. In this elaborate music-theater piece, the legendary interdisciplinary artist and the women of her Vocal Ensemble weave some of Monk’s most adventurous vocal music to date with movement, light, instrumental music, and film to evoke a world where cellular activity can serve as a template for human behavior. Playful and humanistic, Cellular Songs is an exploration of the interconnected relationship between people and the natural world, between the basic unit of life and the universe.
Cellular Songs will be presented at the Walker Art Center’s McGuire Theater at 8 pm on Thursday, October 4; Friday, October 5; and Saturday, October 6.
Presented in association with Minnesota Opera’s youth training program, Project Opera.
READ
The New York Times on Cellular Songs
The Brooklyn Rail review
Artist website
ABOUT MEREDITH MONK
Singer, composer and director Meredith Monk‘s (b. 1942) exploration of vocal technique and performance has brought her many accolades. Monk graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1964—she also holds honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from Bard College, Boston Conservatory, Cornish College of the Arts, The Juilliard School, Mount Holyoke College, the San Francisco Art Institute and the University of the Arts—and has since been awarded honors such as the MacArthur Genius Award, two Guggenheim Fellowships, Musical America‘s 2012 Composer of the Year, and she was appointed the 2014-15 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall. In 2015, Monk received the National Medal of Arts from President Obama.
In 1968, she founded The House, an interdisciplinary performance company and ten years later she founded Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble. Along with vocal performance and choreography, Monk is also a filmmaker, creating award-winning films such as Ellis Island (1981) and Book of Days (1988). Her music has also been featured in films by directors such as Jean-Luc Godard, David Byrne, and the Coen Brothers.
Monk’s relationship with the Walker Art Center has great depth as she has presented numerous works at the Walker dating back to the 1970s, including Education of the Girlchild (1973), Quarry (1977), and Walker commissioned ATLAS: An Opera in Three Parts (1991). When the McGuire Theater re-opened in 2005, Monk held a series of performances with collaborators for the grand opening celebration. Her first work in film, 16 Millimeter Earrings (1966) was on view in the 2016 Walker exhibition Less Than One. View the full chronology here.