Meredith Monk

Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, and creator of new opera and music-theater works. Recognized as one of the most unique and influential artists of our time, she is a pioneer in what is now called “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance”. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which there are no words. Over the last six decades Monk has received numerous awards and honors including a MacArthur Fellowship, Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters from the Republic of France, induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and a National Medal of Arts. She has also been hailed as one of National Public Radio’s 50 Great Voices and “one of America’s coolest composers”. Celebrated internationally, her work has been presented at major venues throughout the world.

In 1965, Monk began her innovative exploration of the voice as a multifaceted instrument, composing mostly solo pieces for unaccompanied voice and voice and keyboard. In 1978, she formed Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble to further expand her musical textures and forms. In addition to numerous vocal, music-theater works and operas, Monk has created vital new repertoire for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments, with commissions from Carnegie Hall, Michael Tilson Thomas/San Francisco Symphony and New World Symphony, Kronos Quartet, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale, among others. Selected scores of her work are available through Boosey & Hawkes. Monk has recorded with the ECM New Series label since 1981 and was recently honored with a 13-disc box set of her work, Meredith Monk: The Recordings, in celebration of her 80th birthday, which includes the 2008 GRAMMY® nominated impermanence. Her music has also been featured in films by Terrence Malick, Jean-Luc Godard, David Byrne and the Coen Brothers.

Among the many highlights of Monk’s performances from the last thirty years is her Vocal Offering for His Holiness the Dalai Lama as part of the World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles in October, 1999. Several marathon performances of her work have taken place in New York at the World Financial Center (1991), Lincoln Center Music Festival (2000), Carnegie’s Zankel Hall (2005 and 2015), Symphony Space (2008) and the Whitney Museum (2009). In February 2012, Ms. Monk was honored with a remix and interpretations cd, MONK MIX, featuring 25 artists from the jazz, pop, dj and new music worlds. She is also the subject of two books of interviews, Conversations with Meredith Monk, by arts critic and Performing Arts Journal editor Bonnie Marranca, and Une voix mystique, by French author Jean-Louis Tallon, as well as an anthology, Meredith Monk, edited by Deborah Jowitt.

In June 2023, Monk premiered her newest work, Indra’s Net, at the Holland Festival, the third part of a trilogy of her works exploring our relationship with the natural world, following the highly acclaimed On Behalf of Nature (2013) and Cellular Songs (2018). From Fall 2023 to Spring 2024, Meredith Monk. Calling, her first European retrospective exhibition, was realized as a collaboration between Oude Kerk Amsterdam with Hartwig Art Foundation, and Haus der Kunst München, with a 400-page adjoining catalog of the same name released in Fall 2024. Recently Monk celebrated her 60th Performance Season with a host of events centered in New York City, including the North American premiere of Indra’s Net at the Park Avenue Armory, with additional performances and workshops abroad. In October 2025 she received the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Music at the Venice Biennale and in March 2026 she was awarded the Berlin Art Prize - Grand Prize from The Akadamie der Künste. She is currently developing a new music-theater work.