Meredith Monk

Many artists possess a distinctive voice, but few are willing to bend and distort theirs as radically as Meredith Monk. A contemporary of Philip Glass, Steve Reich and Laurie Anderson, the avant-garde musician and composer is known for pieces dominated by intricate and complex vocal arrangements or unorthodox intonation, as heard on her melodious 1979 opus, Songs from the Hill: “Lullaby”. Born in 1942 to a professional-singer mother, Monk learned to play piano early on; after studying voice and dance in university, she moved to New York City in 1964, finding her niche in the fertile art scene, where she presented multidisciplinary performances. In subsequent decades, Monk has turned to film (1976’s Quarry: An Opera in Three Movements), opera (1991’s Atlas) and symphonic scores. Her influence on modern music can be subtle—DJ Shadow sampled “Dolmen Music” on a signature song of his, “Midnight In A Perfect World”—although her experimental approach is prominent in the vocal boldness of Björk, who covered “Gotham Lullaby” with the Brodsky Quartet. Monk has kept busy as an artist, with work related to her tenure as the 2014-15 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair at Carnegie Hall and honours including a 2019 induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.