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Diamanda Galás (born August 29 1955) is an American-born avant-garde performance artist, vocalist, and composer. Her parents are Greek Orthodox. Galás was born and raised in San Diego, California. She is know for her distictive, operatic voice, which has an impressive range, and has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror" [1] (http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php?a=diamanda_galas). Galas often shrieks, howls, and seems to immitate glossolalia in her performances. She is also a fine pianist and organist.
She worked with avant-garde composers like Iannis Xenakis and Vinko Globokar who gave her the lead role in his opera Un Jour Comme Une Autre which deals with the death by torture of a Turkish woman. The work was sponsored by Amnesty International. She also contributed her voice of Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula and also apeared on the motion picture soundtrack.
Susan McClary (1991) writes that Galás, "heralds a new moment in the history of musical representation," after describing her thus: "Galás emerged within the post-modern performance art scene in the seventies...protesting...the treatment of victims of the Greek junta, attitudes towards victims of AIDS...Her pieces are constructed from the ululation of traditional Mediterranean keening...whispers, shrieks, and moans."
In 1994, Galás collaborated with Led Zeppelin bass guitarist John Paul Jones. The resultant record, The Sporting Life, while containing much of Galás's trademark vocal gymnastics, is probably the closest she has ever come to rock music.
A recent work (2003) deals with the Turkish genocide of Anatolian Greek, Armenian and Assyrian people.
Her latest song cycle is an interpretation of songs by Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich.
Discography:
- Litanies of Satan (1982) - notable for "Wild Women with Steak Knives"
- Faust. Eros. Tod (1982 ?) (live)
- Diamanda Galas (1984)
- Saint of the Pit (1986)
- Divine Punishment (1986)
- You Must Be Certain of the Devil (1988)
- Masque of the Red Death (1989)
- Plague Mass (1984 End of the Epidemic) (1991) (live)
- The Singer (1992)
- Vena Cava (1993)
- The Sporting Life (1994), with John Paul Jones
- Schrei X (1996) (live)
- Malediction & Prayer (1998) (live)
- La serpenta canta (2003)
- Defixiones, will and testament (2003)
Source
- McClary, Susan (1991). Feminine Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality, p.110-11. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816618984.
External links
- Diamanda Galás (http://www.diamandagalas.com/)
- Shrieking For Sanity (http://www.choler.com/articles/diamandagalas.shtml)
- The Serpent Speaks (http://www.choler.com/articles/diamandagalas2.shtml)
- Diamanda Galás in conversation with Edward Batchelder (http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx?id=2311)de:Diamanda Galás