Multi-faceted artist Meredith Monk
finds fluidity with Sibelius

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - Composer, vocalist, director and choreographer Meredith Monk has been hailed as a major creative force in the performing arts in a career spanning 40 years. A pioneer in what is now called "extended vocal technique" and "interdisciplinary performance," Monk creates works that thrive at the intersection of music and movement, image and object, and light and sound in an effort to weave together new modes of perception. Her diverse career has resulted in operas, musical theater works, film and installations. She has also recorded more than a dozen albums, and has received numerous awards, including the prestigious MacArthur "Genius" Award.

Monk began composing as a student at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y. and formed The House, a company dedicated to an interdisciplinary approach to performance, in 1968. In 1978 she formed Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble to expand her musical textures and forms. She signed to the ECM label in the late 1970s to record her unique and original vocal music. Her recent successes include Possible Sky, her first symphonic work commissioned by Michael Tilson Thomas for the New World Symphony; Stringsongs, commissioned by the Kronos Quartet; and a publishing relationship with Boosey & Hawkes.

A Sibelius user since 2003, Monk recently upgraded from Sibelius 2 to Sibelius 3, and finds the program to be an ideal tool for the traditional and computer-based musician alike.

"We got the program because of my orchestral score for Possible Sky," she explains. "I began to generate the piece with Allison Sniffen (who prepares all of my scores) in another program, and it literally blew out the computer! However, the first composition in which I used Sibelius 3 in very concentrated way was on Stringsongs. It really helped me out - even in the composing process - to both hear and visualize what I was doing."

"It has an incredibly interactive nature," she says. "To actually look at something and be able to hear it simultaneously is something that many people take for granted, but for me, it's a valuable tool. Not only will it allow me to listen back and see whether the song is working musically, but it can also pinpoint exactly where something may not be working without using a lot of tape, or by wasting valuable rehearsal time."

Monk also finds the program's arranging elements to be time saving, particularly with orchestral work.

"The biggest challenge with any orchestral work is the sheer volume of parts, plus how do you actually hear changes? You have to hire another orchestra to play," she says. "I recently entered Possible Sky into Sibelius, and I'm able to input the changes directly, and most importantly, hear them back. Obviously, it's not going to sound exactly like an orchestra, but you definitely can get the idea of the form." Possible Sky will be performed in spring 2005 by the Hamburg Symphony.

"Visually," she adds, "the scores look beautiful. I'm now being published by Boosey and Hawkes, and the Sibelius scores are camera-ready, which is both time- and money-saving."

Although Monk admits to being a bit techno-challenged, she finds that the program is still flexible and immediate.

"I'm not a big computer person, but using a notation program should not stand in the way of art, and this certainly doesn't," she says. "It's not that I can't hand-write music, but it's a slow process to transcribe, make copies and make changes without putting yourself and your performers through labor-intensive rehearsals.

"My eventual goal is to be able to play directly into Sibelius using a keyboard," she adds. "I like the fluidity of it - it captures the immediacy of your thinking."

Monk is currently working on a new musical theater piece called the Impermanence Project, plus Songs of Ascension, written for The Kronos Quartet and her Vocal Ensemble, and Basket Rondo for the Western Wind Ensemble.

To date, there are more than 100,000 Sibelius users worldwide, including television composer Alf Clausen, musician Pat Metheny, composer Sammy Nestico, choral composer John Rutter, guitarist Andy Summers and conductor Michael Tilson-Thomas.

Notes to editors

• Sibelius is the world's market leader in music notation software.
• Sibelius was founded in 1993 by Ben and Jonathan Finn to sell music notation software for the Acorn computer. The Sibelius notation software was released for Windows and Mac in 1998/99.
• Since then the Sibelius Group has developed 13 additional music products for the professional, educational and home user, ranging from Internet publishing to guitar software.
• Sibelius has customers in over 100 countries.
• Sibelius is used in 50% of schools in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
• Sibelius is endorsed by the Royal Academy of Music and is used by all the major music academies and colleges: the Royal College of Music, Trinity College of Music, Oxford and Cambridge Universities, the Juilliard School, Berklee School of Music, the Sibelius Academy in Finland, the Royal College of Music in Stockholm.
• The world's leading music publishers including Music Sales, Hal Leonard and Yamaha use Sibelius.
• Sibelius was recently awarded a prestigious Queen's Award for Innovation.
• Sibelius is headquartered in London, UK, with a US subsidiary, Sibelius USA Inc., in California and a new Australian subsidiary, Sibelius Australia Pty Ltd, in Adelaide.