Press Release 4 September, 2023 The forthcoming major retrospective Meredith Monk: Calling and a series of live concerts at the Oude Kerk Amsterdam will offer an in-depth experience with the legendary work of Monk 21 October 2023 - 17 March 2024 Hartwig Art Foundation & Oude Kerk Meredith Monk: Calling Meredith Monk, The Games (1984). Photo: Paula Court The Oude Kerk Amsterdam and Hartwig Art Foundation are excited to announce the first European retrospective of Meredith Monk’s oeuvre Meredith Monk: Calling opening on 21 October 2023. As an integral part of the show, a series of live concerts will be organised. The concerts will connect Monk’s profound legacy to the Oude Kerk while also passing it on to a new generation of musicians. Meredith Monk: Calling celebrates the visionary work of artist Meredith Monk and takes visitors on a multidimensional journey that blurs the boundaries between visual art, music, and performance. The exhibition translates her live music-theater pieces and concerts into encounters with immersive video- and sound installations in the alcoves and open public space of the 700-year old church. Meredith Monk: Calling is on view at the Oude Kerk from 21 October 2023 until 17 March 2024. More information about the exhibition here As an integral part of this comprehensive presentation in the Oude Kerk, a series of live concerts is scheduled, set in the centuries-old architecture of Amsterdam's oldest building. Saturday 21 October 2023, 20:00 - 21:30: Opening concert, Meredith Monk with Katie Geissinger and Allison Sniffin Meredith Monk, together with members of her Vocal Ensemble (Katie Geissinger and Allison Sniffin), will present one of her rarest and most intimate concerts, reflecting a 60-year career between experimentation and innovation. This will be a musical performance that invites audiences into enchanting and intriguing worlds while exploring the infinite possibilities of the human voice. The programme includes: selections from ATLAS: an opera in three parts (1991), Cellular Songs (2018), The Games (1984), impermanence (2004-2006), Light Songs (1988), The Politics of Quiet (1996), and Volcano Songs: Duets (1993). Friday 1 December 2023 and Friday 16 February 2024: Piano Songs In December during a morning concert and in February as part of an evening programme her well known Piano Songs will be performed. Musically, these piano songs are strongly rooted in Monk's pieces for voice because they are direct, specific and imaginative. Meredith Monk said of the composition, "I delved into different relationships and possibilities between the two pianos; material going back and forth, dialogues, interlocking phrases, shifts of figure and ground. In some pieces, I emphasised the individuality of each piano, writing for one player as 'singer', the other as 'accompaniment'; in other pieces, I wanted the two pianos to make one big sound." At Oude Kerk, Piano Songs will be performed by local musicians who have been instructed and trained by a member of Meredith Monk's Ensemble. 15, 16 and 17 March 2024: A Celebration Service The third concert is presented as an updated and multiple-day performance of A Celebration Service . Monk created this piece to celebrate the dawn of the new millennium. The cast for this performance includes members of the local community - singers, readers, dancers and keyboardists - and is directed by Tom Bogdan, a long-time member of the Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble. For this piece, Meredith Monk drew on 30 years of her musical compositions and spiritual traditions spanning centuries and cultures. She intertwined her songs, chants and original choreography with readings from Buddhist texts, Hasidic proverbs, Zen poetry, African and Native American prayers and a Christian prayer by Hildegard von Bingen all combine in this celebration of community and the search for meaning and connection through ritual. Ticket sales for the concerts will start in mid-September 2023. Keep an eye on the website (oudekerk.nl). Parallel to the comprehensive retrospective Meredith Monk: Calling This programme of live concerts is part of the most comprehensive survey to date of contemporary music legend Meredith Monk in the Oude Kerk Amsterdam from 21 October 2023 until 17 March 2024. The presentation is a unique retrospective of her influential performance practice in which she has constantly sought harmony between the spiritual, the earth, and human existence. Monk transforms the space into a singing body and immerses the audience in an audio-visual experience created especially for the Oude Kerk. Monk's artistic practice and the history of the Oude Kerk share an important characteristic: improvisation as a guide for transformation. The current form of the church did not emerge from a fixed concept, but through an organic process of improvisation and adaptation to the needs of the time, just like Monk's compositions, which arise through improvisation and are fluid, with different pieces forming the building blocks of larger compositions. Meredith Monk: Calling is a co - presentation of Oude Kerk Amsterdam and Hartwig Art Foundation. Curated by Beatrix Ruf, director Hartwig Art Foundation, the exhibition is developed in close collaboration with Meredith Monk and The House Foundation for the Arts. This first survey of Meredith Monk’s oeuvre is a collaboration in two acts: at the Oude Kerk in Amsterdam, together with Hartwig Art Foundation (Oct. 21, 2023 — March 17, 2024), and the Haus der Kunst in Munich (Nov. 10, 2023 — March 3, 2024). Legend of contemporary music Meredith Monk (b. 1942, New York City) is a composer, singer, director, choreographer, filmmaker, and creator of new opera, music-theater works, films and installations. Recognised as one of the most unique and influential artists of our time, she is a pioneer of what is now called extended vocal technique and interdisciplinary performance. Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, light and sound, discovering and weaving together new modes of perception. Celebrated internationally, Monk’s work has been presented at major venues throughout the world. EDITOR’S NOTES: About Hartwig Art Foundation Hartwig Art Foundation is active in fostering and facilitating the production, presentation, communication and preservation of contemporary art for society at large in an effort to support the cultural ecosystem in the Netherlands and abroad. Art here includes all media of the visual arts, time-based arts and future art forms in the broadest sense that are related to the continued development of artistic expression and media. The production, presentation, mediation and preservation of art aims, in particular, at the sustainable promotion of a cultural environment for society as a whole, both in terms of infrastructures and people. Hartwig Art Foundation is working towards the establishment of a new museum for contemporary art in Amsterdam. hartwigartfoundation.nl About Oude Kerk Amsterdam The Oude Kerk is a space for contemporary art in Amsterdam’s oldest building, in the middle of the historic city center. Commissioned by the Oude Kerk, artists create monumental new work specially for the place. The art installations explore the acoustics of the building, play with the perception of the space or illuminate stories from the centuries-old history of the place in new ways. Recent commissions: Ibrahim Mahama (2022), Antonio Obá (2022), Susan Philipsz (2021), Aimée Zito Lema (2021), Adrian Villar Rojas (2019). Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller (2018). Oudekerk.nl For press requests please contact: Rhiannon Pickles at Pickles PR rhiannon@picklespr.com | +31 (0)6158 21202