The Washington Post 2/26/06: Meredith Monk, that formidable doyenne of the avant-garde art music scene, brought her renowned vocal ensemble to the George Mason University Center for the Arts on Saturday night for "Impermanence," a beautiful and deeply personal new work on the themes of death, leave-taking and the fragility of human life.
Sound a little heavy? Well, actually, maybe not. At 63, Monk is an engaging composer and singer, and the evening was replete with her trademark ululations and microtonal slides, those wonderful yips and yelps, her vocalized breaths and gorgeously off-kilter harmonies. The unique voice may have aged a bit, and she was eclipsed as an innovator years ago by the likes of Diamanda Galas and Sainkho Namtchylak, but who cares? She's still a fine composer -- and always easy on the ears.
Maybe a little too easy. "Impermanence" is an extended meditation on loss, exploring the emotional terrain at the end of life. It's a rich field to mine, and Monk created a sensuous soundscape out of it (with accompanying dance and film). That said, there was little edge or drive to the piece and too much of the art school preciousness that still lingers in her work. You felt absorbed into a trancelike ritual that, while pleasant enough, didn't exactly leave impact craters on the heart.
That may have been partly due to the choreography, which can only be described with wincing and painful groans, and which undercut the many poignant moments in the music. But the ensemble members were all first-rate, with excellent performances from Katie Geissinger, Bohdan Hilash, Ching Gonzalez and others.