Meredith Monk

Meredith Jane Monk born November 20 1942 is an American composer performer director vocalist filmmaker and choreographer From the 1960s onwards Monk has created multidisciplinary works which combine music theatre and dance recording extensively for ECM Records1 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 JeanLuc Godard Nouvelle Vague 1990 and Notre musique 2004 Trip hop musician DJ Shadow sampled Monks Dolmen Music on the song Midnight in a Perfect World In 2015 she was awarded the National Medal of Arts by Barack Obama