Please Remember MELA for Your Year-End Giving
Dear Friend of MELA,
As 2025 draws to a close, we at MELA would like to share some reflections on the year just past, and to express our deepest gratitude to our contributors, whose generous and continuing support makes it possible for our artistic visions to manifest themselves for audiences in sound and light.
2025 was the thirty-second year of the MELA Dream House in New York City. This, the longest-running Dream House, continues to inspire new generations and to carry forward the traditions that have resonated with long-time audiences.
Last January, MELA concluded its four-concert series centered on La Monte Young's rarely heard music of the early 1960s. This final program featured two works: Young's 1963 Studies in the Bowed Disc performed by Young and Jung Hee Choi, along with Choi herself performing the world premiere of her electroacoustic composition Seven, using - for the first time ever in a public concert - the Instrument for La Monte Young designed in 1966 by the artist Walter De Maria.
During March and April, in commemoration of both the birthday of Marian Zazeela and the anniversary of her passing on March 28, 2024, the MELA Dream House mounted an installation of Young and Zazeela's historic Music and Light Box (1967-1968). This exhibition offered present-day audiences a rare opportunity to experience an earlier stage of the sound/light genre that would eventually evolve into the now-familiar Dream House environments. Alongside this installation, Choi's Light Point Drawings Nos. 28 and 29 appeared in a new configuration that further extended her creative dialogue with Zazeela's Magenta Day/Magenta Night.
During May, the beautiful and historic Casa del Lago UNAM in Mexico City hosted the highly acclaimed La Monte Young Marian Zazeela Jung Hee Choi MEXICO 25 V 08 DREAM HOUSE, the first Dream House to be presented in the Americas outside of the U.S.
In June, commemorating the legacy of Pandit Pran Nath, and again in October, celebrating the 90th birthday of La Monte Young, the MELA Dream House presented two evening concerts of Raga Darbari, performed by The Just Alap Raga Ensemble featuring La Monte Young and Jung Hee Choi (voices), Jon Catler (electric fretless guitar), Hansford Rowe (electric fretless bass), and Naren Budhkar (tabla). These manifestations of the raga, innovative while reverent of the tradition, continue to vivify the artistry of the ancient Indian Kirana school, as developed by a long line of master musicians including Ustad Abdul Wahid Khan Sahib and Pandit Pran Nath, and now with harmonic elements introduced by La Monte Young. A first-time technological feature of the October program was a unicast of one of the live performances to the Regenbogenstadl Dream House in Polling, Germany, site of the world's second-longest running instantiation of this time, space, and medium-spanning work.
Also in October, the New York Dream House began its 33rd year at that site with an expansive, enthralling new configuration of Jung Hee Choi's ongoing Color installation. Alongside works that have been presented in the MELA Dream House since 1993, the organic development of these more recent works illuminates new dimensions of becoming within being, and being within becoming.
In further celebration of the extraordinary life and work of Marian Zazeela and as a token of gratitude to our donors, we have produced a limited run of .T-shirts featuring Zazeela's intricate, hypnotic drawing, designed originally for the jacket of the famed Black Record of 1969.
Even as we look back with pride on MELA's creative successes, we also contemplate urgent and significant challenges to sustaining the work in the years ahead. The philanthropy of individual supporters like you has always been crucial in enabling us to realize our artistic vision. We would thus like again to express our deepest gratitude to those whose past dedication and generosity have made MELA's projects a reality, and to extend a welcoming hand to potential new contributors.
Please join or renew your MELA membership, or make a custom donation of any size, one-time or recurring. Your tax-deductible contributions go 100 percent towards making the art and sharing it with audiences. As a member, you will receive special benefits described in the below membership information. Now, as always, we will be deeply and eternally grateful for every gift of support we receive.
| La Monte Young Artistic Director |
Jung Hee Choi Executive Director |
Jon Hendricks President |
Make a Custom Donation
We appreciate contributions of any size. To donate a custom amount, CLICK HERE.
Become a Contributing Member of MELA Foundation
In addition to supporting the work of the Foundation, your membership entitles you to reduced or free admission to the MELA Dream House installation and concerts, and advance notice of new releases and publications. Other benefits vary according to the level of your gift. There is never a shipping charge for standard shipping of your membership benefit.
| Student $60 |
Unlimited Free Access to MELA Dream House & Special Marian Zazeela issue of La Scuola delle Cose with fold-out poster of The Well-Tuned Piano album art & One Member's Rate Season Concert Pass |
| Friend $120 |
Unlimited Free Access to MELA Dream House & Special Marian Zazeela issue of La Scuola delle Cose with fold-out poster of The Well-Tuned Piano album art & One Member's Rate Season Concert Pass |
| Associate $250 |
Unlimited Free Access to MELA Dream House & Special Limited Edition Marian Zazeela T-Shirt & One Member's Rate Season Concert Pass |
| Fellow $500 |
Unlimited Free Access to MELA Dream House & Special Limited Edition Marian Zazeela T-Shirt & One Complimentary Ticket to ALL Concerts |
| Sponsor $1,000 |
Unlimited Free Access to MELA Dream House & Original Photo-Offset Print Concert Poster by Marian Zazeela & Two Complimentary Tickets to ALL Concerts |
| Donor $3,000 |
Unlimited Free Access to MELA Dream House & Catalog, Marian Zazeela Drawings, Polling, 2000 & Two Complimentary Tickets to ALL Concerts |
| Patron $5,000 |
Unlimited Free Access to MELA Dream House & Signed LP Box Set of La Monte Young's Trio for Strings, 2021 & Four Complimentary Tickets to ALL Concerts & Open Invitations to Special Previews and Receptions |
Your membership is valid for one year and all contributions are tax-deductible to the full extent allowed by law. If you prefer to receive no membership gift, the full value of your contribution will go toward the work of MELA Foundation - please let us know if this is your preference. If your employer has a matching contributions program, please be sure to tell us.
We appreciate contributions of any size. If you wish to donate an amount not listed on this page, CLICK HERE.
You can also send your donation by check payable to MELA Foundation.
Mailing Address: 275 Church Street #2, New York, NY 10013