Meredith Monk

Monday 20 October 2025, 12:00 noon
Ca’ Giustinian, Venice

La Biennale di Venezia will present the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to the American composer and performer Meredith Monk, an interdisciplinary artist whose influence extends from new experimental music to contemporary classical, from electronics to Jazz and pop, inspiring generations of artists.

As the motivation for the award states, “Meredith Monk has revolutionised music and the performing arts with an approach that has expanded the potential of the human voice, transforming it into a vehicle for unprecedented sonic exploration. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Music acknowledges her remarkable and enduring impact on the contemporary music scene, her unique artistic vision and constant commitment to research into sound. Through her compositions and performances, Meredith Monk has demonstrated an unwavering capacity for innovation, transforming music into an immersive ritual experience. Her music exists in the same space that The Star Within proposes to explore: a sonic cosmogony, a vibration that runs through us connecting us with the other, a deep echo in which listening becomes transformation. Her wordless incantations and ability to build entire sonic worlds from the simplest gestures give rise to a dialogue between matter and spirit, between presence and transcendence. Her work cannot be confined within historical categories, but opens up a living universe of sound, in constant evolution, which appears both archaic and radically innovative at the same time”.

Born in New York in 1942, following her studies at Sarah Lawrence College, Meredith Monk became a leading figure of the New York experimental scene of the 1960s, developing an extended vocal technique and interdisciplinary aesthetic which have redefined contemporary performance. The founder of The House (1968) and of the Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble (1978), she has created works that blend music, theatre, dance and cinema, pushing the boundaries of the arts. Her most significant works include Dolmen Music (1981), which marked a turning point in vocal music, and Atlas (1991), a three-part opera commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera. Another visionary work is Vessel: an opera epic (1971), for an ensemble of 75 voices, electronic organ, dulcimer and accordion, consolidating Monk’s reputation as a pioneer of site-specific art. Her cycle Songs of Ascension (2008) represents one of the pinnacles of her musical research, combining voice, sonic architecture and spirituality in a composition that explores elevation in music. The work, conceived for an eight-story tower designed by visual artist Ann Hamilton, brings together a string quartet, wind instruments, percussions and chorus.

Meredith Monk was invited to the Biennale Teatro and Musica in 1975 and 1976, the famous editions directed by Luca Ronconi, with Education of the Girlchild: an opera and Quarry: an opera in three movements, two of the works that revealed her to the entire world.

Meredith Monk (1942, New York) is a composer, singer, and creator of new opera and music-theatre works, films, and installations. Recognized as one of the most unique and influential artists of our time, she is a pioneer in what is now called “extended vocal technique” and “interdisciplinary performance”. Her groundbreaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which there are no words. Over the last six decades Monk has received numerous awards and honors including a MacArthur Fellowship, Officer of the Order of Arts and Letters from the Republic of France, induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, and a National Medal of Arts.
In 1965, Monk began her innovative exploration of the voice as a multifaceted instrument, composing solo pieces for unaccompanied voice and voice and keyboard. In 1978, she founded Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble. In addition to her numerous vocal works, Monk has created vital new repertoire for orchestra, chamber ensembles, and solo instruments, with recent commissions from the San Francisco Symphony and Carnegie Hall where she held the 2014-15 Richard and Barbara Debs Composer’s Chair. Monk has recorded with the ECM New Series label since 1981 and was recently honoured with a 13-disc box set of her work, Meredith Monk: The Recordings, in celebration of her 80th birthday. Her music can also be heard in films by such directors as Terrence Malick, Jean-Luc Godard, David Byrne, and the Coen Brothers. Selected scores of her work are available through Boosey & Hawkes.
From the Fall of 2023 to the Spring of 2024, Meredith Monk. Calling, her first European retrospective exhibition, was realized as a collaboration between Oude Kerk Amsterdam with Hartwig Art Foundation, and Haus der Kunst München. Monk is currently celebrating her sixtieth performance season which began with sold-out performances at the Park Avenue Armory of her newest work, Indra’s Net, the third part of a trilogy exploring our relationship with the natural world. The artist continues with a host of events centred in New York City through May 2025.