Meredith Monk is primarily known for her vocal innovations, including a wide range of extended techniques, which she first developed in her solo performances prior to forming her own ensemble. In December 1961, she appeared at the Actor’s Playhouse in Greenwich Village (NYC) as a solo dancer in an Off Broadway children’s musical theater adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol, entitled Scrooge (music and lyrics by Norman Curtis; directed and choreographed by Patricia Taylor Curtis). In 1964, Monk graduated from Sarah Lawrence College after studying with Beverly Schmidt Blossom, and in 1968 she founded The House, a company dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach to performance.

Monk’s performances have influenced many artists, including Bruce Nauman, whom she met in San Francisco in 1968. In 1978 Monk formed Meredith Monk and Vocal Ensemble (modeled after similar ensembles of musical colleagues, such as Steve Reich and Philip Glass), to explore new and wider vocal textures and forms, which often were contrasted with minimal instrumental textures. Monk began a long-standing relationship with the Walker Art Center of Minneapolis, which continues to showcase her work to this day. During this period Monk recorded Dolmen Music (1979), her first album released on Manfred Eicher’s record label ECM, in 1981.

Monk has won numerous awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship and the Creative Capital Award in the discipline of Performing Arts. She has also been a MacDowell Fellow six times (1987, 1988, 1994, 1996, 2001, Winter 2007). She has been awarded honorary Doctor of Arts degrees from Bard College, the University of the Arts (Philadelphia), the Juilliard School, the San Francisco Art Institute and the Boston Conservatory. In 1979, the Supersisters trading card set was produced and distributed; one of the cards featured Monk’s name and picture. In 1985, Monk won an Obie Award for Sustained Excellence for her contributions to the Off-Broadway community.

From the 1960s onwards, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records. In 1991, Monk composed Atlas, an opera, commissioned and produced by the Houston Opera and the American Music Theater Festival. Her music has been used in films by the Coen Brothers (The Big Lebowski, 1998) and Jean-Luc Godard (Nouvelle Vague, 1990 and Notre musique, 2004). Trip hop musician DJ Shadow sampled Monk’s “Dolmen Music” on the song “Midnight in a Perfect World.” In 2015, she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Barack Obama.

In the early 1990s, Monk composed an opera called Atlas, which premiered in Houston, Texas, in 1991. She has also written pieces for instrumental ensembles and symphony orchestras. Her first symphonic work was Possible Sky (2003). It was followed by Stringsongs (2004) for string quartet, which was commissioned by the Kronos Quartet. In 2005, events were held all over the world in celebration of the 40th anniversary of her career, including a concert in Carnegie Hall featuring Björk, Terry Riley, DJ Spooky (who sampled Monk on his album Drums of Death), Ursula Oppens, Bruce Brubaker, John Zorn, and the new music ensembles Alarm Will Sound and Bang on a Can All-Stars, along with the Pacific Mozart Ensemble. Meredith Monk has been composer in residence for Carnegie Hall, concluding in 2015.

In 2007, she received in Italy the Demetrio Stratos International Award for musical experimentation. On September 10, 2015, U.S. President Barack Obama presented Monk with a National Medal of Arts, the highest honor in the United States specifically given for achievement in the arts. Monk was given The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize in 2017.