In 1995, Meredith Monk won a MacArthur "genius" grant. I heard one of her solo vocal performances and it was unique, strange and captivating. Here is a brief synopsis from her website, www.meredithmonk.org:

Meredith Monk is a composer, singer, director/choreographer and creator of new opera, musical theater works, films and installations. A pioneer in what is now called "extended vocal technique" and "interdisciplinary performance", ....Her ground breaking exploration of the voice as an instrument, as an eloquent language in and of itself, expands the boundaries of musical composition, creating landscapes of sound that unearth feelings, energies, and memories for which we have no words. She has alternately been proclaimed as a "voice of the future" and "one of America's coolest composers."

She has made more than a dozen recordings, most of which are on the ECM New Series label. A new CD 'mercy' was released in November, 2002.

In October 1999 Monk performed a Vocal Offering for His Holiness, the Dalai Lama as part of the World Festival of Sacred Music in Los Angeles. Her first orchestra piece 'Possible Sky' commissioned by Michael Tilson Thomas for the New World Symphony, premiered in April 2003 in Miami. Current projects include a new work for the Western Wind Vocal Ensemble; and the Kronos Quartet.