Meredith Monk’s Turtle Dreams and Folk Music from Another Planet: Q2 Spaces

In this episode of Q2 Spaces, we tour the living quarters and urban fairy-tale rehearsal space of visionary composer and singer Meredith Monk. More: http://bit.ly/1xeBdte

Monk opens a window onto her longstanding Buddhist practice; her sculptured, cinematic approach to composition and cultivation of a “beginner’s mind;” her turtle Neutron and piano Rose; and an upbringing which included singing trios with her mother and sister while doing chores around the house.

Monk describes her sound as “folk music from another planet,” getting at what listeners have identified in her music as a time and place-less simultaneity of the ancient and the modern, as the vibrant outgrowth of her early epiphany that the human voice could be treated as a part of the body, as profoundly physical and versatile instrument capable of unchartered expressive possibilities.

Video: Kim Nowacki & Alex Ambrose
Executive Producers: Alex Ambrose & Mike Rinzel

Music: All music by Meredith Monk | Courtesy of ECM Records
http://www.meredithmonk.org
http://www.ecmrecords.com

Q2 Spaces is produced by Q2 Music, New York Public Radio’s online music station devoted to contemporary classical music and dynamic live webcasts from leading new-music venues. Q2 Music lives online at wqxr.org/q2music.

© Q2 Music 2014