Meredith Monk took up the piano at the age of four, studied music theory according to the Jaques-Dalcroze method, and took singing lessons with her mother’s singing teacher. She later studied various artistic disciplines—notably dance—at Sarah Lawrence College in New York, graduating in 1964. While there, she composed her first works, including And Sarah Knew (1962) and Timestop (1964).

After graduation, she moved to New York City in the fall of 1964 and joined its thriving artistic avant-garde: her first pieces were created at the Judson Memorial Church, in galleries, but also in her own loft in the TriBeCa neighbourhood, in public spaces or in atypical locations. In 1965, she began to explore the use of the voice as a multifaceted instrument, largely through the composition of innovative works for solo voice or voice and piano. On the basis of these pieces, she developed an interdisciplinary creative identity which occupied the space between music and movement, image and object, and light and sound, allowing her to conceive and weave together new modes of performance and perception. Her use of voice as an instrument is the building block from which a poetic experience unfolds organically that has little equivalent in the world of contemporary Western music.

In 1968, she founded “The House”, a collective dedicated to interdisciplinary performance practices, with whom she premiered Juice (1969) in the rotunda of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, a work which would later be reused as part of the Ascension Variations (2009). Other site-specific pieces followed, such as the Tours series (1969-1971), Vessel: An Opera Epic (1971) on Joan of Arc, American Archaeology # 1: Roosevelt Island (1994) and Songs of Ascension (2008) created in the circular tower designed by visual artist Ann Hamilton for the Oliver Ranch Foundation, California. In 1972-73, Education of the Girlchild, for six voices, electric organ and piano, became one of her signature works, which she has revived regularly since. In February 1975, Meredith Monk took part in one of the ‘events’ proposed by the choreographer Merce Cunningham: this was the beginning of her friendship with John Cage, who would invite her ten years later to perform his piece Aria, composed in 1958 for Cathy Berberian. In 2012, conductor Michael Tilson Thomas brought together Meredith Monk, Joan La Barbara and Jessye Norman to perform Cage’s Song Book for his “American Mavericks” concert series on the 20th anniversary of his death.

In 1978, she founded “Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble,” a medium through which she could further explore the voice and musical forms, strongly influenced by folklore from all over the world, but also by medieval music. The release of Dolmen Music in 1981 marked the beginning of her collaboration with the ECM New Series label, which has continued to the present day. With her ensemble, she has toured extensively throughout the world and recorded numerous albums, including Turtle Dreams (1983), Do You Be (1987), Impermanence (2007) and On Behalf of Nature (2016). All of these records correspond to performances, the music of which the composer has sometimes revised for the purposes of recording. In the 1980s, Meredith Monk directed the medium-length film Ellis Island (1981) and the feature film Book of Days (1988), which were screened at numerous film festivals around the world. In 1991, ATLAS: An Opera In Three Parts was commissioned by the Houston Opera and in 2019 the Los Angeles Philharmonic presented a new production, directed by Yuval Sharon.

In the early 2000s, Meredith Monk signed a contract with the publisher Boosey & Hawkes, and undertook to record part of her repertoire. In addition to dozens of vocal pieces, scenic works and operas, Monk’s catalogue also contains works for orchestra, chamber ensemble and solo instruments. She has been commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Michael Tilson Thomas (for the San Francisco Symphony and the New World Symphony), Kronos Quartet, Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Master Chorale. In 2013, Meredith Monk began a trilogy of works combining music and theatre, exploring the interdependent relationship of human beings with nature, with On Behalf of Nature, followed by Cellular Songs (2018) and Indra’s Net (2020). In 2020, the CD Memory Game marks the meeting of Meredith Monk and her Vocal Ensemble with the ensemble Bang On A Can All-Stars.

Several retrospectives or marathon performances of her work have taken place in New York at the World Financial Center (1991), Lincoln Center Music Festival (2000), Carnegie’s Zankel Hall (2005 and 2015), Symphony Space (2008) and the Whitney Museum (2009). Since the 1970s, Meredith Monk has collected a number of prestigious honours and awards, including the National Medal of the Arts, which she received in 2015 from President Barack Obama.

Meredith Monk holds honorary doctorates from such universities as Bard College, Boston Conservatory, Concordia University, Cornish College of the Arts, The Juilliard School, Lafayette College, Mount Holyoke College, San Francisco Art Institute, and Hartford University.

Notwithstanding this institutional recognition, Meredith Monk, whom singers such as Björk and Camille cite as a reference, remains an eminently unclassifiable artist, whose influence extends far beyond the strict musical field.