Meredith Monk

In this brilliant collection, path-breaking figures of American experimental music discuss the meaning of their work at the turn of the twenty-first century. Presented between 1989 and 2002 at Wesleyan University, these captivating lectures provide rare insights by composers whose work has shaped our understanding of what it means to be experimental: Maryanne Amacher, Robert Ashley, Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, Steve Reich, James Tenney, Christian Wolff, and La Monte Young. Collected here for th…

Cellular Songs is the first Meredith Monk release with ECM since the extensive box-set Meredith Monk: The Recordings in 2022 and the first recording of new music since 2016's On Behalf of Nature. It is also the second part of an interdisciplinary trilogy of performance works by Meredith Monk that began with On Behalf of Nature, a meditation on the precarious state of our global ecology. Cellular Songs turns attention to the very fabric of life itself, and evokes such biological processes as laye…

2009 release ** Featuring: Amy Denio, Cristina Zavalloni, Joan La Barbara, Demetrio Stratos, Sainkho Namchylak, Meredith Monk, Luigi Nono, Cathy Berberian, David Moss, Fátima Miranda, Greetje Bijma, Sabina Meyer, Marcello Abbado, Sidsel Endresen.

*BIlingual Edition Italian/English*  "There was a certain time when I felt that to make ar t that was useful,I wanted to offer an alternative template of the possibilities of the human being, and I wanted to creatework that was more of a sacred space, where we could come to with a belief that art has a healing power." This book is a result of a conversation between Meredith Monk and Bonnie Marranca.

The first visual book on the massively influential musician and interdisciplinary artist whose six-decade oeuvre unites music, movement and art

** Original copies of this rarity. Factory sealed. Few copies available **  In 1978, Semiotext(e) founder Sylvere Lotringer approached John Giorno about organizing a tribute to William S Burroughs, bringing together European and American academics for a series of seminars, celebrating the writer as a "philosopher of the future", someone who best understood postindustrial society. Giorno was more interested in a counterculture event that would feature musicians, poets, novelists and artists along…

** Original copies of this rarity. Factory sealed. Few copies available **  The seventh in the Dial-a-Poem Poets LP series. Iconic cover featuring  Giorno posing with Philip Glass, Meredith Monk, and two children in a park. It also features Robert Ashley's “Interiors with Flash” a study for what would become 'Automatic Writing' "Yet another fine album title from Giorno Poetry Systems, which could apply to any organisation or person applying any form of censorship on the already dead forms of med…

“Songs of Ascension” is a major new recording from composer Meredith Monk and her vocal ensemble. Written in 2008, it is conceived as a continuous composition, a departure from Monk’s earlier collaged or episodic extended works. In recent years Meredith Monk’s been expanding into the worlds of orchestra and string quartet. On “Songs of Ascension” she teams up with a string quartet of New York players well versed in new music. With winds, percussion and two vocal groups added to her already extra…

Meredith Monk is generally described as an avant-garde artist of many talents. Of her many talents there is no question, but what exactly makes her “avant-garde”? The Random House Dictionary defines the term as meaning “of or pertaining to the experimental treatment of artistic, musical, or literary material.” This raises another question: What does it mean to be experimental? The same dictionary gives us: “founded on…an act or operation for the purpose of discovering something unknown or of tes…

Celebrating Meredith Monk as composer, these Piano Songs give us a world at once playful and earnest. Written or derived from work composed between 1971 and 2006, the pieces inhabit Monk’s unique universe, as played by two of new music’s most distinguished interpreters, pianists Ursula Oppens and Bruce Brubaker. These pieces are ‘songs’ because they have strong roots in Monk’s pieces for voice, and because they are direct, specific, and imagistic. Meredith Monk on composing for two pianos: “I de…

For five decades, vocalist-composer Meredith Monk has explored what she calls “primordial utterance,” or non-verbal vocal sound that lay beneath and beyond language, expressing “that for which we have no words.” This exploration has led her to create music that The New Yorker describes as simultaneously “visceral and ethereal, raw and rapt,” an art that “sings, dances and meditates on timeless forces.” With her latest, multivalent ECM New Series album, Monk aimed to address ecology and climate c…

Restocked, reduced price * 13-CD limited edition box set with 300 page booklet * The Recordings, a box set edition compiling all Meredith Monk ECM New Series discs to date, is issued on the occasion of the composer and singer’s 80th birthday. With Dolmen Music in 1981 Meredith became the first singer to be the front person on an ECM recording. Included here are the albums Dolmen Music, Turtle Dreams, Do You Be, Book of Days, Facing North, ATLAS, Volcano Songs, mercy, impermanence, Songs of Ascen…

* CD in 6-panel wallet, designed by Denise Burt, including a booklet with lyrics and liner notes by the composer * Memory Game is both a look back at a pivotal point in Meredith Monk’s storied career, and a richly layered portrait of how vocal music, under the guidance of an indefatigable master, can play with our expectations in poignant and compelling ways. What emerges is a suite of songs that flows with a remarkable narrative cohesion, stemming in large part from the composer’s willingness t…

One of the great overlooked artifacts of the New York avant-garde, Meredith Monk’s debut album - Key, is a revelation - leaping over the decades with a vision as radical as the day it was made. Originally privately issued in 1971 - now emerging in the hands of Tompkins Square, across its sides, the human voice unfurls as its rarely been heard - the origins of Monk’s seminal body of work, and a near perfect lens into the awe inspiring nature of the era from which it sprang.Within avant-garde prac…

This DVD presents a rare and powerful solo performance by one of the most important and original artists in the world. Recorded in 1980 at a studio on Long Island, Meredith is in full voice, relaxed and creatively inspired by a small audience of Monk cogniscenti. Recorded with a 3-camera shoot and then put on the shelf, Tzadik is proud to present the first release of this astonishing virtuoso solo performance.

Meredith Monk and her vocal troupe cut a line between experimental theatre and music, marking a passage through the Ancient Greek tragedy, the opera, world-music, the archaic ritual and the mystical chant. It started with "Gotham Lullaby", presenting a contralto over a desolate and stark piano sonata. Then "Travelling" set a feverish gypsy dance, a wild ritual stirring the primeval forces at play. The sonata returned in "The Tale", as the backbone to an offbeat pantomime/ theatrical performance.…

The pieces in Tzadik's collection of early works by Meredith Monk have either never been released before or are heard in performances released here for the first time. Since her 1981 album Dolmen Music, Monk has recorded for ECM, and these selections (including some live performances) all predate that release. The album begins with a disarmingly simple version of Greensleeves, made in 1966; it's intriguing to hear Monk's distinctive voice conventionally used in a folk song. Monk tends work in la…

Airwaves. A legendary document of 1970s American performance and sound art. Released in 1977 on One Ten Records (OT 001/2), this groundbreaking double LP compilation captures the radical intersection of visual art, performance, and experimental sound. Edited by Bob George, Airwaves: Two Record Anthology of Artists' Aural Work & Music features Vito Acconci, Laurie Anderson, Meredith Monk, Dennis Oppenheim, Terry Fox, Connie Beckley, Diego Cortez, Jacki Apple, Julia Heyward, Leandro Katz, Richard …

Recordings from '76/77. "Songs..." is a suite of solo voice pieces, showcasing her various extended techniques. Some excellent experimental vocals, some a bit too whimsical perhaps. "Tablet" is a 23 minute ensemble work for 4 female voices, piano & soprano recorder. Only one copy available.

Founded in New York in 1971, The Kitchen is internationally known as a leading center for video, music, dance, performance, new media and literature. Orange Mountain Music has begun the restoration of audio reels from performances at The Kitchen with the goal of producing a series of CDs entitled From The Kitchen Archives. New Music, New York 1979, the debut release in this series, is a two-disc set offering re-mastered recordings from the landmark concerts of 'New Music, New York: A Festival of…