Meredith Monk Will Perform as Part of the 2021-22 Mills Music Now Concert Series Season

Internationally acclaimed composer, director and performer Meredith Monk will premiere concert performances of her upcoming interdisciplinary, evening-length music theater work, Indra's Net, on November 12 & 13. Presented by Mills Performing Arts and The House Foundation for the Arts, with the Mills College Music Department. The performances will be held for limited-capacity audiences in the Jeannik Méquet Littlefield Concert Hall at Mills College in Oakland, California and will be live streamed via the Mills Performing Arts website. Tickets available October 12, 2021, see below for details.

Tickets are $25 with registration required. Masks are required of all guests, at all times indoors on the Mills College campus, regardless of COVID-19 vaccination status. Link to the live stream presentation of this concert will be provided on the day of the event.

Following On Behalf of Nature (2013), a plea for ecological awareness, and Cellular Songs (2018), which turned attention to the fabric of life itself, Indra's Net is Monk's third work in a trilogy dedicated to our relationship with the natural world. Initially set to premiere in November 2020 and both delayed and informed by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, it is a contemplative offering to the world in which we now find ourselves, embodying the principle of interconnectedness through music and performance.

The work is inspired by the ancient Buddhist/Hindu legend of Indra's Net, which tells of an enlightened king, Indra, who stretches a large net across the universe with an infinitely faceted jewel placed at each intersection. Each jewel is wholly unique yet reflects all the others, illuminating the interdependence of all living things-a particularly apt metaphor for our current times.

Indra's Net features an intergenerational and multicultural cast including Meredith Monk, Paul An, Theo Bleckmann, Gideon Crevoshay, Allison Easter, Ellen Fisher, Katie Geissinger, John Hollenbeck and Allison Sniffin. Joining Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble will be a chamber orchestra consisting of players mostly from the San Francisco Bay Area, including Jennifer Ellis, Tony Gennaro, Keefe Ismael, John Ivers, Nayoung Jung, Kyle Ko, Genevieve Kromm, Rhein Matlack, Yuki Nagase, Erika Oba, Shaina Pan, Nasr Sheikh, Jamael Smith, Julian Sommer, and Michiko Theurer. The production features scenic and costume design by Yoshio Yabara, lighting design by Joe Levasseur and sound design by Daniel Neumann.

The piece was workshopped at Mills College in Fall 2018 and 2019 with Bay Area musicians and at ArtLab at Harvard University in Spring 2020.

Indra's Net is made possible through the generous support of The Hewlett Foundation 50 Arts Commissions, The National Endowment for the Arts, ArtLab at Harvard University and Queenslab in Ridgewood, Queens.

Learn more at https://performingarts.mills.edu/programs/meredith-monk.php.

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