Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton at the Walker
If you missed last week’s collaborative performance by composer Meredith Monk and Season 1 artist Ann Hamilton at the Walker Art Center, you can still listen to an audio clip on the Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) website or watch a video on the Walker’s blog.
According to MPR, Monk’s score for Songs of Ascension was in part inspired by a cement tower Hamilton built in California; Monk describes the tower as a sort of “architectural vocal cord.” Hamilton’s video component is a series of moving images: a running horse, a flying heron, and a sailing ship that float across the stage and walls of the theater. Hamilton likes to think of her video as “the weather in which Monk’s music and movement is performed.” Monk first came up with the idea for this piece when a Zen abbot spoke to her of the Songs of Ascents–songs which Jews were believed to have sung in Biblical times on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and up Mt. Zion. Songs of Ascension explores the spiritual, vocal, and physical notions of ascension across geography and time.
Currently a work-in-progress, the official premiere of Songs of Ascension will be held at Stanford University this fall.
3 Responses to “Meredith Monk and Ann Hamilton at the Walker”
Check out the video by San Francisco’s SPARK* about the Ann Hamilton-designed tower where Monk performed here.
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[...] Songs of Ascension, the multimedia work by Season 1 artist Ann Hamilton and composer Meredith Monk will be included in this year’s Next Wave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). [...]
[...] currently at BAM, Songs of Ascension by Ann Hamilton (Season 1) and Meredith Monk was featured in a New York Times music review last [...]