Meredith Monk News

Widely acclaimed composer, performer, singer and creator Meredith Monk announces her robust 2019–2020 season, which is set to include a host of performances, residencies and workshops, as well as the distinguished honor of being appointed Harvard University's Fromm Foundation Visiting Lecturer on Music. Combined, the season offers audiences numerous opportunities to experience Monk's work, gain glimpses into her creative process and learn from Monk herself alongside longtime members of her renowned Vocal Ensemble. Highlights follow, with links to additional info.

Steven Blier, Artistic Director a?? Michael Barrett, Associate Artistic Director   presents Marc Blitzstein's No For An Answer and Kurt Weill's Der Silbersee (Silverlake). Two powerful, neglected works by two masters of political theater. Each speaks passionately to the issues of our times. 

Tony Award-winning La MaMa presents the all-women clown troupe Clowns Ex Machina in the world premiere of THE BAD'UNS: CLOWN ACTS OF CONTAGION, created and directed by Kendall Cornell in collaboration with the ensemble, running November 7 - 17, 2019 at La MaMa's Downstairs Theatre, located at 66 East 4th Street between 2nd Avenue and the Bowery in New York City. Previews begin November 7 for a November 9 opening.

Earn Rockstar Status at Guild Hall of East Hampton!  Bid to win two premium seat tickets to every single performance in the historic John Drew Theater at Guild Hall for the entire 2020 Summer Season!

Santtu-Matias Rouvali will make his New York Philharmonic debut conducting the New York Premiere of Bryce Dessner's Wires, featuring the composer (lead guitarist of The National) on electric guitar in his Philharmonic debut; Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet, Overture-Fantasy; and Sibelius's Symphony No. 1. The program will take place on Thursday, November 14, 2019, at 7:30 p.m.; Friday, November 15 at 8:00 p.m.; and Saturday, November 16 at 8:00 p.m.

Daily from Monday, October 14 through Friday, October 18 at 10:00 and 11:30 a.m., Carnegie Hall presents 10 performances of NOOMA, a work co-commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Minnesota Opera, and San Francisco Opera,

Last January, Joseph Keckler seemed to burst forth, fully blown, like Athena from the head of Zeus, at New York's Prototype Festival (though his emergence was, in fact, no such thing, having already been a staple of the Downtown scene for several years). This month, Philadelphia's got him, at the Opera Philadelphia O19, running from September 20-28, with LET ME DIE. It's a genre-bending performance piece for the baritone, whose voice ascends to tenorial heights, that peppers famous operatic death scenes (with some singing collaborators) with video from Lianne Arnold, his own music and signature comedic je ne sais quoi.

New York City-based performing arts organization CreArtBox and Parhelion Trio presents a new production titled a?oeBilitisa?? that includes the staging of Claude Debussy's Chansons de Bilitis, featuring actor Jacopo Rampini, a world premiere by Seong Ae Kim, and music by Philip Glass, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Camille Saint-Saëns.

Ted Sperling, Artistic Director of MasterVoices, announced details of the acclaimed ensemble's 78th season, celebrating the joy of choral singing and the power of the human voice to unite, inspire and connect since 1941. Highlights include three major musical presentations at top venues, including a New York premiere, and the World Premiere of a new work, commissioned by the Company. Throughout the season there will be collaborations with leading singers, artists, ensembles and organizations, some who are familiar with and others who are new to the Company.

Word for Word and Z Space stage an atmospheric production of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's legendary Rime of the Ancient Mariner  with press nights of Friday and Saturday September 20 & 21 at 8pm running through October 12 (Previews Sept 11-19).

Long Island City-based performing arts organization, CreArtBox, announces its second annual music festival. The festival strives to present classical and contemporary music in a modern way, using eclectic programming and a strong visual component to engage and enthuse audience members. Taking place during three evenings across Labor Day Weekend (August 30th - September 1st), the festival will be hosted at the 12,000 square foot Plaxall Gallery (5-25 46th Ave, Long Island City, NY 11101).

Today, the musical/visual project Kill the Whale: A Musical Odyssey has revealed the second musical series from the epic, entitled “Dusk.” Aptly released in the same year of Herman Melville's 200th birthday, the song introduces the character Starbuck, played by Courtney Bassett (The Great Comet). Watch the video below! 

La MaMa announces its 58th season, featuring more than twenty world and US premieres, and dozens of artists, playwrights, choreographers, directors, award-winning theater companies and composers, including Philip Glass, Andrei Serban, Estelle Parsons, Germaine Acogny, Evan Yionoulis, Theodora Skipitares, Anne Bogart, Charlotte Brathwaite and many more.

Season 5 Opens with 'A Night of Female Composers' featuring works by Clara Schumann, Ellen Reid, Emma O'Halloran, Mary Lou Williams, Missy Mazzoli, Meredith Monk, and Paola Prestini Lara Downes' 'Holes in the Sky' concert marks the 200th birthday of Clara Schumann with a tribute to influential female composers

For its landmark fifth anniversary, National Sawdust a?" the performing arts institution in Williamsburg, Brooklyn a?" Takes Root by celebrating the artistic process, from incubation to dissemination, while honoring the local and global artistic community it serves. 

Singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and artist Eliza Bagg recently launched her new solo project Lisel, and her remarkable self-produced debut album entitled Angels on the Slope will be released on Luminelle on Friday. Ahead of its release, the album is streaming now exclusively via Hype Machine. Angels on the Slope effortlessly moves from gauzy and ethereal to distorted, beat-driven pop, and is an incredibly captivating debut effort that is not to be missed.

The Los Angeles Philharmonic Association announces the promotion of Assistant Conductor Paolo Bortolameolli to Associate Conductor of the LA Phil for a one-year term, extending his current contract through the 201920 season. His new title becomes effective this summer.

Peak Performances announces its 2019-2020 season, considering the vocabularies of the body, genre and form, artistic practices and legacies, cultures, and language itself-how they persevere, disappear, or shift over time with new influences and perspectives. This season, Peak Performances offers its state-of-the-art platform to artists who work with-and sometimes against-these established vocabularies in the creation of exhilarating new performance works and the reinvigoration of preexisting texts, compositions, and choreographies. All performances take place at the Alexander Kasser Theater (1 Normal Ave, Montclair, NJ 07043).

LA MAMA - the 2018 Tony Award winning theater - will present the world premiere music drama from South Korea, 13 FRUITCAKES, written and directed by BYUNGKOO AHN, as part of the STONEWALL 50 festival at the Ellen Stewart Theater (66 E. 4 St.) in Manhattan, June 13-16. 

Singer, producer, multi-instrumentalist and artist Eliza Bagg recently launched her new solo project Lisel with its first single, the stunning 'Ciphers.' Today Lisel announces her remarkable self-produced debut album, Angels on the Slope, an exciting introduction to a solo artist who taps into her experience in classical, avant-garde, experimental and indie pop spheres on this incredible first effort.