Alone on stage, dressed in vivid red, Meredith Monk begins singing phrases, each lasting as long as her breath allows. The phrases extend as she decorates her pure sound with inflections and tiny changes in timbre. Breaths dissect the phrases and soon gain their own importance. One and a half minutes into the performance and the audience is transfixed.
For the rest of the first half of her concert at the SFX Theatre, Meredith Monk sang unaccompanied, revealing her extraordinary range of vocal expression. Although feted as a choreographer and filmmaker, it is in her ever-changing vocalising that you find the essence of Monk's artistry. This is not empty virtuosity or a litany of show-off vocal techniques. Her artistic voice and her actual voice are one. Every sound is expressive, musical and completely apposite. Allied to this is an engaging performance presence, radiating warmth onstage with her simple presentation and easy-going introductions.
The Songs from the Hill were inspired by the New Mexico landscape and although not overtly descriptive, each gave an essence of that landscape. Warm resonating hums, rustling insects, cries for echoes that we have to imagine return, and finally a jaw harp draw us into her world. Her physical movements reinforce her utterances and at the end of Prairie Ghost, her last breath seems to ripple through her wriggling fingers before finally leaving her body.
The second half featured songs accompanied by either herself or Clark Stiefel on piano (which was disgracefully out-of-tune). The simple harmonic cycles of Gotham Lullaby, and driving five-four rhythms of Travelling provided subtle frames for their respective songs. Throughout the night each of the songs had an integral form and never meandered beyond their simple expression.
In New York Requiem we heard broad, simple vowels mourning loss. In some ways this was the most traditional song, placing pure undecorated melody above timbre. Initially composed as a response to the growing AIDS crisis, it obviously has gained extra resonance for Monk in recent weeks. Although ostensibly a requiem, it is not without anger, most evidently in the piano writing.
The concert, along with extracts from Meredith Monk's seminar, is due to be broadcast on Lyric FM on November 12th.
