Phaedra Ensemble: The Music of Meredith Monk review – fleeting rough edges amid polished beauty
Kings Place, LondonWorks by the not-quite-minimalist composer’s included her Realm Variations and quartet Stringsongs in a compelling concert There’s no one quite like Meredith Monk. So often grouped with her...
By Flora Willson · The Guardian Culture
Kings Place, London Works by the not-quite-minimalist composer’s included her Realm Variations and quartet Stringsongs in a compelling concert There’s no one quite like Meredith Monk . So often grouped with her lionised contemporaries Philip Glass , Steve Reich , Terry Riley and La Monte Young , she is 83 to their 90-odd years and sports long plaited hair as reliably as Reich wears a baseball cap. Yet she refuses the label “minimalism” for her music, and composition is just one element of a creative life that also takes in singing, choreography, film-making and drawing. Monk was not present at this performance marking the launch of Phaedra Ensemble’s new album of her music , though she did loom briefly over the audience on video, professing “it’s a dream of mine for this music to be recorded and played”. (Compare that to the fortunes of Glass’s works.) But she had been closely involved, having invited the group to record some of her music after hearing them play. Continue reading...