Turtle Dreams

{{Use mdy dates|date=May 2025}} {{Infobox album | name = Turtle Dreams | type = Album | artist = Meredith Monk | cover = Turtle Dreams.jpg | alt = | released = 1983 | recorded = 1983 | venue = | studio = | genre = Contemporary classical music | length = 37:24 | label = ECM New Series<br>ECM 1240 | producer = {{hlist|Collin Walcott|Manfred Eicher}} | chronology = Meredith Monk | prev_title = Dolmen Music | prev_year = 1981 | next_title = Do You Be | next_year = 1987 }}

'''''Turtle Dreams''''' is an album by American composer and vocalist Meredith Monk recorded in 1983 and released on the ECM New Series later that year.<ref name="ECM discography">[http://www.ecmrecords.com/Catalogue/New_Series/1200/1240.php ECM discography] accessed September 20, 2011</ref> A choreographed version of the work premiered at the Plexus Club in Chelsea, Manhattan.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Meredith Monk: Perception as Content • Online • Afterall|url=https://www.afterall.org/online/meredith.monkperception.as.content#.XVgUsIWfIcg|access-date=2020-07-19|website=www.afterall.org}}</ref> A film version, directed by Ping Chong, was broadcast the same year on September 2 on WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts.<ref>{{cite web | url=http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_272C618289CC4A028CB4D42D94DA167B | title=Turtle Dreams; Meredith Monk's Turtle Dreams }}</ref>

==Background==

In the late 1970s Monk acquired a turtle named Neutron as a pet. Monk commented in a 2016 ''New York Times'' interview, "When I first got her I had a lot of dreams about her, very strange dreams. And then I started thinking, how does a turtle think? What would a turtle mind be, and if she's sleeping, what would a turtle dream be?"<ref name="nyt-turtles">{{cite news |last1=Robin |first1=William |title=The Secret Muse of the Downtown Scene? Turtles |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/13/arts/music/the-secret-muse-of-the-downtown-scene-turtles.html |accessdate=12 August 2020 |work=The New York Times |date=8 Nov 2016}}</ref>

In a 2010 interview, Monk said she found standard music concerts boring, and said "at that time I started to try to feed in elements to that situation—like one little element of movement. Turtle Dreams is a music piece that has a very simplified movement component. I was working on that music myself, and then I thought 'wouldn't it be interesting if the movement had a totally simple counterpoint? So instead of standing there singing, what about if we went from side to side?' And from there, the piece seemed to make itself."<ref name="yap-interview">{{cite web |last1=Leaver-Yap |first1=Isla |title=Meredith Monk Interviewed |url=https://voiceisalanguage.wordpress.com/2010/04/19/text-meredith-monk-interviewed-by-isla-leaver-yap/ |website=The Voice Is a Language |date=19 April 2010 |accessdate=12 August 2020}}</ref> She also added, "When I was working on it I didn't realise some things that I see now. There's a certain fascist element to it, and I wasn't conscious of that at the time.... There's a flatness, a surface style to the people, and maybe a kind of narcissism too."<ref name="yap-interview"/>

The film version of the piece includes footage of turtles, initially in natural settings and then walking across a world map and through a miniature model of a Western city. This footage was photographed and directed by filmmaker Robert Withers.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Withers |first1=Robert |title=Turtle Dreams |url=https://vimeo.com/32058104 |website=Vimeo |date=13 November 2011 |accessdate=12 August 2020}}</ref>

==Reception== AllMusic awarded the album four stars, with Ted Mills calling it "A daring display of vocal gymnastics and a journey back to childhood when all sounds were wondrous."<ref name="Allmusic">Mills, T. [http://www.allmusic.com/album/turtle-dreams-r107834 Allmusic Review] accessed September 20, 2011</ref>

After its premier, John Rockwell of ''The New York Times'' wrote, "The effect is rich, enigmatic and compelling."<ref>{{cite news |last1=Rockwell |first1=John |title=Music: Meredith Monk |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/23/arts/music-meredith-monk.html |work=The New York Times |accessdate=20 July 2020 |date=23 May 1981 |ref=nyt}}</ref> Writing for ''Afterall'', Isla Leaver-Yap suggested that ''Turtle Dreams'' is "one of Monk's most aggressive and direct works" and comments, "The proximity of players to audience, and the blank stare that they deliver, push ''Turtle Dreams'' into a place of intimate hostility, where the emotional charge does not derive from the content but from the format and tone in the work."<ref name="yap-essay">{{cite web |last1=Leaver-Yap |first1=Isla |title=Meredith Monk: Perception as Content |url=https://www.afterall.org/online/meredith.monkperception.as.content |website=Afterall |publisher=University of the Arts London |accessdate=12 August 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150921063319/http://www.afterall.org/online/meredith.monkperception.as.content/ |archive-date=21 September 2015}}</ref>

==Track listing== {{Track listing | all_writing = Meredith Monk | headline = Side I | title1 = Turtle Dreams (Waltz) | length1 = 17:52 }}{{Track listing | headline = Side II | title1 = View 1 | length1 = 10:13 | title2 = Engine Steps | length2 = 2:03 | title3 = Ester's Song | length3 = 1:14 | title4 = View 2 | length4 = 6:02 }}

* Recorded in New York City (tracks 1 & 2), at Hanford Mills Museum, East Meredith in New York (track 3), and at Tonstudio Bauer in Ludwigsburg, West Germany (track 4 & 5)

==Personnel== *Meredith Monk – voice, piano (side II), Minimoog (side II), Casio (side II), organ (side I) *Collin Walcott – didgeridoo (side II), organ (side II)

=== Additional musicians === *Julius Eastman, Steve Lockwood – organ (side I) *Andrea Goodman, Paul Langland, Robert Een – voice (side I)

=== Technical personnel ===

* Collin Walcott, Manfred Eicher – producer * Martin Wieland – mixing engineer * Barbara Wojirsch – cover design * Yoshia Yabara – costume design * Sarah Ouwerkerk – photography

==References== {{reflist}}

Category:1983 albums Category:Albums produced by Manfred Eicher Category:ECM New Series albums Category:Meredith Monk albums