Heralded by The New York Times as "one of America's most brilliant and unclassifiable theatrical artists," Meredith Monk has forged a singular vision working as a composer, singer, filmmaker, choreographer, and director since the 1960s. In conjunction with the Walker Art Center exhibition Art Performs Life: Merce Cunningham/Meredith Monk/Bill T. Jones, which showcases the work of three essential innovators in the performing arts, Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble will inaugurate the first of three Artist-in-Residence programs planned for June and September.

Monk and her Ensemble will celebrate the opening of the exhibition with a Performance Workshop at 6:30 pm Tuesday, June 23, in the Walker Auditorium; a rare retrospective concert of Monk's vocal work at 8 pm Friday, June 26, followed by an informal conversation with Walker Performing Arts Curator Philip Bither, also in the Auditorium; and a free performance of Monk's ritualistic music-theater work A Celebration Service at 2 pm Sunday, June 28, at The First Unitarian Society, Minneapolis. The Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company will be in residence in September during the closing weeks of the exhibition.

A pioneer in interdisciplinary performance and using a unique non-verbal approach to vocal music, Meredith Monk has created more than 100 works and received wide critical acclaim. Over the past 24 years, the Walker has commissioned five major pieces by Monk and has presented her work seven times, including the mounting of her epic operas Education of the Girlchild (1973), Quarry (1976), and ATLAS (1991). Most recently, the Walker commissioned her acclaimed music-theater work The Politics of Quiet (1996) as well as a new piece entitled Magic Frequencies to
premiere in 1999.

Born in 1942, Monk graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1964 with a combined performing arts degree, and in 1968 founded The House, a company dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach to performance. She formed Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble in 1978 to tour and perform her unique musical compositions. Her more than a dozen recordings include her full-length opera, ATLAS: an opera in three parts (1991) and Volcano Songs , released in 1997. In 1996 the American Guild of Organists commissioned Monk to create A Celebration Service, a non-sectarian worship service melding her haunting vocal music and movement with spiritual texts drawn from two millennia.

Monk's achievements have been recognized with numerous awards throughout her career, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, a Brandeis Creative Arts Award, three Obies (including an award for sustained achievement), and a Bessie for Sustained Creative Achievement. In 1995, she was awarded a prestigious MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. In 1997, the Johns Hopkins University Press published Meredith Monk , a collection of key writings on Monk's work edited by Deborah Jowitt. Art Performs Life marks the first full-scale museum presentation of Monk's work.

Artist-in-Residence:
Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble

Performance Workshop
Tuesday, June 23, 6:30 pm, $10 ($5)
Auditorium
Join Meredith Monk and members of her Vocal Ensemble for an interdisciplinary performance workshop that combines voice, composition, improvisation, and movement. Issues considered include character, archetypes, landscape, gesture, ritual, and personal myth. All levels of performance experience are welcome. Limited to 20 participants. SOLD OUT.

In Concert and Conversation
Friday, June 26, 8 pm, $16 ($8)
Auditorium
Monk and her Vocal Ensemble present a concert featuring a rare 30-year career retrospective of her vocal work -- a fully produced theatrical experience that includes selections from such Walker co-commissions as ATLAS , The Politics of Quiet, and Volcano Songs. The 12-member Ensemble, comprised of artists from such diverse backgrounds as Chinese and Western opera, dance, new music, and interdisciplinary theater, utilizes Monk's unique vocal technique to uncover sounds rich with emotional resonance. Followed by an informal conversation between Monk and Walker Performing Arts Curator Philip Bither.

A Celebration Service
Sunday, June 28, 2 pm, Free
The First Unitarian Society
900 Mount Curve Avenue, Minneapolis
Performed by Meredith Monk and Ensemble with various local artists, this nonsectarian melding of music, text, and movement celebrates the universal quest for spirituality. In addition to Monk's musical compositions, the elaborate and haunting texts include a 17th-century Japanese Zen poem, a Sufi poem from 13th-century Afghanistan, a traditional Ethiopian rain song, an 8th-century Chinese poem, a 12th-century Christian prayer by Hildegard von Bingen, and other sacred texts. A Celebration Service concludes with an outdoor processional from the First Unitarian Society (located behind the Walker) for a concluding performance component. Copresented with the First Unitarian Society.

Art Performs Life related performances and residency activities are supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Sage and John Cowles, Arts Midwest Performing Arts Touring Fund, Heartland Arts Fund, Martha and Bruce Atwater, the Rehael Fund - Roger L. Hale/Eleanor L. Hall of The Minneapolis Foundation, Harriet and Ed Spencer, Penny and Mike Winton, Gertrude Lippincott Fund, Martha Ann Davies, Constance Mayeron and Charles Fuller Cowles, Joanne and Philip Von Blon, Margaret and Angus Wurtele, Suzanne and Ted Zorn, Katherine and Robert Goodale, Judith and Jerome Ingber, and Priscilla Goldstein.

Tickets are available at the Walker box office or by calling (612) 375-7622 (voice); (612) 375-7585 (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf). Patrons with special needs are asked to call two weeks in advance.