Studio Dan

Anyone who has crossed paths with Jalalu-Kalvert Nelson will never forget the warmth and sincerity of the great heart that greets you. The composer and trumpeter, who grew up in Oklahoma and now resides in Switzerland, seems to possess an endless wellspring of energy—energy he channels into chamber music, theater scores, performances, and countless stories. Whether Meredith Monk exhibits the same openness and warmth, we cannot say. But what is certain is that she, especially as a dynamic performer of her own works and also as a composer, fuses ritual and mythical elements with practices of avant-garde art from 1970s and 1980s New York—a point of connection between the two featured artists.