The revered interdisciplinary artist, now in her 80s, remains vigorous and regards the joy of curiosity as the key to staying young.
Now in her 80s, the New York interdisciplinary artist Meredith Monk remains best known for her extended vocal technique, a concept she found her way to in the 1960s.had a business card, she might need to print on both sides to adequately represent her career. Few artists have opened their minds as wide or embraced as much as Monk has over a span of nearly 60 years, including indelible work as a singer, composer, pianist, filmmaker, director, choreographer, dancer, recording artist and educator.
Dalcroze said all musical ideas reside in the body. He had a three-pronged pedagogical system that was rhythmic training, solfege — which is the “do-re-mi-fa-so-la-ti-do,” but we learned it by moving our arms in space so we could know what low to high was. Some people don't have that concept of music — it sounds like some foreign language to them — but if you actually work it out physically, you start to understand how you hear pitch.
There was a sense of adventurousness, because the whole society was changing at that point. There was a community called the downtown arts scene, and people from all disciplines were trying to go past their own discipline and find new ways of doing things. For example, there were wonderful dance pieces made by sculptors. There were wonderful music pieces made by poets. People were really trying to find the boundaries, or lack of boundaries, of their art forms.
I didn't know her too well, but I met her. She was part of that Fluxus group and she was not doing music at that time; she was a very early conceptual artist. I remember a piece … at the Judson Gallery that I think was called, where they had built a white room. Outside the room you put on a black bag that you zipped up, that you could see through. And you stepped up into that little white room and just sat there, and you looked like a rock. It was really beautiful.Oh, yes.
I love being flexible like that. I love going from Carnegie Hall to P.S. 120, because I want my work to be accessible to anyone. That's why I feel it's so important that music education stays in the school systems — because what people don't know, they don't know. If they're not exposed to something, it's really hard for them to have the reference points. I do believe in the healing power of art.
In 1978 you created the Meredith Monk Vocal Ensemble, a group of singer-performers. How did you go about teaching them this vocalizing that you had, more or less, kept for yourself up to that point?, an opera about World War II, and I had a chorus of about 28 young, very good singer-dancers. I was longing to try to enlarge my textural possibilities, so I added three strong female singers, and I made this piece called.
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