This NS+ Talk brings together two mavericks in the world of music and art. Meredith Monk, whom Björk calls “one of the most important composers alive,” has created enthralling opera, music-theater, film, and installations over more than five decades. Fluidly creating new vocabularies of contemporary performance, this singular composer, singer, and director/choreographer has “mapped a world that never quite existed in the history of the arts” (The New Yorker). Her tremendous influence has been seen in the work of countless artists, including interviewer Yuval Sharon, the firebrand director who upends conventional notions of form, genre, and experience. Last fall his LA-based company, The Industry, mounted Hopscotch, an intimate, immersive mobile opera in 24 cars. The work was hailed as “breathtaking” (Vice), “awe-inspiring” (The New Yorker), and “one of the most audacious cultural events of the year” (Los Angeles Times). His directing credits include operas by John Adams, Péter Eötvös, and Richard Wagner. Monk and Sharon previously worked together on a production of John Cage’s Song Books described as “dizzyingly spectacular, full of elaborately choreographed mayhem” (New York).

Monk photo by Julieta Cervantes
Sharon photo by Casey Kringlen