In Sunday’s (3/7) St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sarah Bryan Miller writes, “Meredith Monk’s mother’s family were singers: her grandfather was a cantor, and her mother sang with Mitch Miller and was the original Muriel Cigar girl. Her father’s family worked with wood. In her own work, Monk carves unique musical compositions that combine sounds with visual elements and movement. Her newest work will have its world premiere March 13 with music director David Robertson and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra at Powell Symphony Hall. It doesn’t yet have a name. At press time, however, Monk was leaning toward ‘What the Stream Knows,’ a name she feels ‘has a sense of contour.’… Most composers put notes on the page as a first step. Monk takes a different approach. ‘The way that I prefer to work is much more hands-on,’ she says. ‘I have an idea of the overall structure, but the way I work is much more like sculpting. When I’m working with instruments, I have to go into much more of a scoring mode.’ ”
Posted March 8, 2010
