Meredith Monk's new orchestral Weave premiered
(May 2010)
Meredith Monk won a standing ovation for the premiere in March of Weave, her new work for two voices, chamber orchestra and chorus, the latest in a series of collaborations integrating her ensemble-based vocal idiom with symphonic performance. David Robertson conducted the combined forces of the St Louis Symphony and Chorus together with members of Monk’s vocal ensemble. The 23-minute score was co-commissioned by the LA Master Chorale who gave a further performance in April at Disney Hall conducted by Grant Gershon.“Like strands of thread, melodic themes are sown into energized patterns… The vocal soloists start spinning the basic material, which Monk has described as bell-like sounds, a walking theme and sonic cascades. There is no text (there rarely is in Monk’s music). Nor do these solo voices always sound like voices; Monk is a master of turning the vocal cords into orchestral instruments. The chorus picks up its music from the soloists, becoming an extended body of extended vocal techniques… Monk is the super-seamstress of performance. Her career has been predicated on the fact that movement, theater, film, music, site, script are all part of a large fabric…”
Los Angeles Times
“…voices and orchestra acting as warp and woof on the sonic loom of Monk’s creation… Voices sound wordlessly or on nonsense syllables, sounding at times more like a gamelan orchestra than singing. It’s tonal and lovely, exotic and unexpected. Weave makes more imaginative use of the orchestra than Monk’s earlier works, integrating the instruments – a small orchestra dominated by a battery of marimbas and two pianos - seamlessly into the whole… It builds, then tapers, in the moment, with fascination that holds the audience suspended.”
St Louis Post Dispatch
“At once meditative, then playful, then meditative again, Weave is a feast for the soul, the ears and the eyes… While not mimicking instruments, Monk shows the world that voices are indeed instruments of their own kind. The result is spiritually moving.”
St Louis Classical Music Examiner
> Further information on Work: Weave
Photo: Jessie Froman
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