American composer and performer Meredith Monk is the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement of the Biennale Musica 2025, a multidisciplinary artist whose influence extends from avant-garde music to contemporary classical, from experimental electronics to jazz and pop, inspiring generations of artists. The Silver Lion is awarded to Chuquimamani-Condori, an American of Bolivian origin, a visionary voice in contemporary experimental music.

Born in New York in 1942, after studying at Sarah Lawrence College, Meredith Monk became a leading figure in the New York experimental scene of the 1960s, developing an extensive vocal technique and an interdisciplinary aesthetic that redefined contemporary performance. Founder of The House (1968) and the Meredith Monk & Vocal Ensemble (1978), she created works that fused music, theatre, dance and film, pushing the boundaries of the arts. His most significant works include Dolmen Music (1981), which marked a turning point in vocal music, and Atlas (1991), a large-scale opera commissioned by the Houston Grand Opera. According to the citation, ‘Meredith Monk revolutionised music and performance art with an approach that expanded the potential of the human voice, transforming it into a vehicle for unprecedented sonic exploration. The Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement in Music is in recognition of his extraordinary and lasting impact on the contemporary music scene, his unique artistic vision, and his constant commitment to sound research. Through her compositions and performances, Meredith Monk has demonstrated a relentless capacity for innovation, transforming music into an immersive, ritualistic experience. Her music exists in the same space that La Stella Dentro sets out to explore: a cosmogony of sound, a vibration that passes through us connecting us with the other, a deep echo in which listening becomes transformation’. In Venice, Meredith Monk had been invited to the Theatre and Music Biennale in 1975 and 1976, the famous editions directed by Luca Ronconi, with Education of the Girlchild: an opera and Quarry: an opera in three movements, two of the works that imposed her on the world. The Biennale Musica 2025 will host a special performance by Meredith Monk at the Teatro Malibran, with an extensive programme of works spanning her entire career, performed by her and members of her vocal ensemble. The festival will also present testimonies of her multifaceted creative career through films, installations and reflections.

Chuquimamani-Condori is affiliated with the Pakajaqi Nation and was born in 1985 in the Inland Empire region of California. She began her musical career under the pseudonyms E+E and Elysia Crampton, creating digital sound collages combining Andean musical forms with experimental electronic rhythms. She has since evolved her artistic practice, integrating Aymara ceremonial traditions with contemporary performance methodologies. Among his most recent works is Q’iwanakaxa/Q’iwsanakaxa Utjxiwa, presented at MoMA PS1 in New York: a collaboration with his brother Joshua Chuquimia Crampton that fuses sound, music and images to honour ancestors and reflect on issues of resistance and cultural identity. “A multidisciplinary artist and musician of Bolivian origin,” reads the motivation, “Chuquimamani-Condori, whose project is also known as Elysia Crampton Chuquimia, is a visionary voice in contemporary experimental music. Her work redefines the boundaries of electronic composition, interweaving the folk sounds of the indigenous Aymara tradition with digital technologies and club culture. Rooted in Aymara cosmology and decolonial philosophy, his music stands as an act of resistance to linear temporal conventions and Western musical structures. With a career spanning over two decades, Chuquimamani-Condori has developed an innovative approach to sound through the use of sampling, polyrhythmic structures, futuristic melodic synths and complex personal narratives. On the occasion of the Biennale Musica 2025, Chuquimamani-Condori will present a project commissioned by the festival in which the ‘water ceremonies’ of the past and present resonate. A musical procession of “barchini” will cross the canals of Venice, culminating in a live concert by Los Thuthanaka, the duo composed by the artist and his brother Joshua Chuquimia Crampton, in front of the Isolotto in the Arsenale.