Diamanda Galás

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Diamanda Galás
Diamanda Galas, QE Hall, London 18-20.03.08 (number1).jpg
Diamanda Galas performance at QE Hall, London, UK
Background information
Born (1955-08-29) August 29, 1955 (age 57)[1]
San Diego, California, U.S.
Genres Avant-garde, experimental, blues, No Wave, gothic rock, darkwave
Occupations Vocalist, keyboardist, composer
Instruments Piano, keyboard, organ
Years active 1979–present
Labels Mute Records
Website

www.DiamandaGalas.com

www.DiamandaGalas.com.mx

Diamanda Galás (born August 29, 1955) is an American avant-garde composer, vocalist, pianist, organist, performance artist and painter.

Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", with her three and a half octave vocal range.[2] Her works largely concentrate on the topics of AIDS, mental illness, despair, injustice, condemnation, and loss of dignity. She has worked with many avant-garde composers, including Iannis Xenakis, Vinko Globokar and John Zorn, and also collaborated with jazz musician Bobby Bradford, and John Paul Jones, former bassist of Led Zeppelin.[3]

Contents

Biography [edit]

Diamanda Galás was born and raised in San Diego, California, to Greek Orthodox parents. She studied a wide range of musical forms, and played gigs in San Diego with her father, also a musician, performing Greek and Arabic music.[4] After moving to Europe, Galas made her solo performance debut at the Festival d'Avignon, in France, in 1979, performing the lead in the opera Un Jour comme un autre, by composer Vinko Globokar,[5] based upon Amnesty International's documentation of the arrest and torture of a Turkish woman for alleged treason.[citation needed]

Galás' first album was The Litanies of Satan, released in 1982. Her second album, Diamanda Galas, was released in 1984.

Diamanda Galás' work first garnered widespread attention with The Masque of the Red Death, an operatic trilogy which includes The Divine Punishment, Saint of the Pit and You Must Be Certain of the Devil. In it, she details the suffering of people with AIDS. Shortly after the recording of the trilogy's first volume began, her brother, playwright Philip-Dimitri Galás, became sick with the disease, which goaded Galás to redouble her efforts. Philip-Dimitri Galás died in 1986, just before the completion of the trilogy.

Career [edit]

In 1988 Galás joined ACT UP, the AIDS activist group.

On December 10, 1989, Galás was arrested inside Saint Patrick's Cathedral, as part of ACT UP's Stop the Church demonstration, while protesting John Cardinal O'Connor's opposition to AIDS education, and the distribution of condoms in public schools. She was one of 53 people arrested inside the cathedral.

In 1990 Galás performed at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York, the recording of which was released in 1991 as Plague Mass, in which she criticized the Roman Catholic Church for its indifference to AIDS.

Galás also sings in a Blues style, interpreting a wide range of blues songs with her unique piano and vocal styles. This aspect of her work is perhaps best represented by her 1992 album, The Singer, on which she covered Willie Dixon, Roy Acuff, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins, as well as Gloomy Sunday", a song written by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress in 1933 and translated into English by Desmond Carter.

In 1993 Galás released Judgement Day, a video of her performances, and Vena Cava, a live album, recorded at The Kitchen in 1992.

In 1994 Galás collaborated with Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, a longtime admirer of the singer. The resulting record, The Sporting Life, was released the same year. She was also featured on the soundtrack for Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers.

In 1995 Galás contributed her voice to the eponymous album of British synth-pop duo, Erasure, at the invitation of the lead singer, Andy Bell.[6]

Galás has published one book, The Shit of God, in 1996. It contains many of her original writings. Also in 1996, she released Schrei X, a live recording.

In 1997 Galás contributed vocals to the album Closed on Account of Rabies, a tribute to Edgar Allan Poe which also included Iggy Pop, Debbie Harry and Marianne Faithfull, lending their voices to the tales of the legendary author. Galás' reading of "The Black Cat" was the longest recording on the compilation.

In 1998 Galás released Malediction and Prayer, which was recorded live in 1996 and 1997.

In 2000 Galás worked with Recoil, contributing her voice to the album Liquid. She's the lead vocalist on the album's first single, "Strange Hours", for which she also wrote the lyrics, and can be heard on "Jezebel" and "Vertigen" as a backing vocalist.

In August, 2004 Galás released the album Defixiones, Will and Testament: Orders from the Dead, an 80-minute memorial to the Armenian, Greek, Assyrian and Hellenic victims of the Turkish genocide. Defixiones refers to the warnings on Greek gravestones against removing the remains of the dead. In December 2004 Galás released, La Serpenta Canta a live album including material recorded between May 1999 & November 2002.

In 2005 Galás was awarded Italy's prestigious Demetrio Stratos International Career Award.

In 2008 Galás released Guilty Guilty Guilty.

Galás' vocals from her song "Orders from the Dead" were used on the album Aealo by Greek black metal band Rotting Christ, released in February 2010.

In 2011 she collaborated with Soviet dissident artist Vladislav Shabalin for "Aquarium", a sound installation inspired by the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. The event took place at Leonhardskirche in Basel (Switzerland) from 12 to 19 June.*[1]

Film work [edit]

Galás has often worked in the film industry. She was the voice of the dead in The Serpent and the Rainbow. A cover of the Schwartz-Dietz song "Dancing in the Dark" appears in Clive Barker's film Lord Of Illusions during the closing credits. "Le Treizième Revient" and "Exeloume" appear on the soundtrack to Derek Jarman's The Last of England. She contributed vocals to Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 film Dracula as a group of female vampires, as well as John Milius's 1982 film Conan the Barbarian as the voice of a witch. Excerpts from Galás' "I Put a Spell On You", "Vena Cava", "The Lord is My Shepherd", and "Judgement Day" can be heard in Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers.

Influences [edit]

Galás has cited multiple artists as influences on her music, including Maria Callas, John Lee Hooker, and Johnny Cash. She is also influenced greatly by Greek and Middle Eastern styles of singing, as well as blues music.[3]

Discography [edit]

References [edit]

  1. ^ "Diamanda Galás". Allmusic. Retrieved 8 September 2011.  Text " AllMusic" ignored (help)
  2. ^ "Diamanda Galás". TrouserPress.com. Retrieved 2011-06-30. 
  3. ^ a b Galás, Diamanda. Defixiones, Will & Testament Interview in Italy. Retrieved 2013-01-09 YouTube
  4. ^ Diamanda Galás. Interview in kultur & nöje. Sweden. 1 April 2011. YouTube
  5. ^ "Diamanda Galás' Discography at Discogs". Retrieved 2012-02-02. 
  6. ^ "Interview with Erasure". OM Magazine, Russia. Retrieved 1997-07-08. 

Further reading [edit]

External links [edit]

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