Diamanda Galás (born August 29, 1955) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, visual artist, and
soprano
A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...
. She has campaigned for AIDS education and the rights of the infected.
Galás's commitment to addressing social issues and her involvement in collective action has made her concentrate on themes such as
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
,
mental illness
A mental disorder, also referred to as a mental illness or psychiatric disorder, is a behavioral or mental pattern that causes significant distress or impairment of personal functioning. Such features may be persistent, relapsing and remitti ...
, despair, loss of dignity, political injustice, historical revisionism, and war crimes.
Galás has attracted the attention of the press particularly for her voice – a
soprano sfogato
Soprano sfogato ("Vented" soprano) is a contralto or mezzo-soprano who is capable — by sheer industry or natural talent — of extending her upper range and encompassing the coloratura soprano tessitura. An upwardly extended "natural" soprano is ...
– and written accounts that describe her work as original and thought-provoking refer to her as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror",
an "aesthetic revolutionary", "a mourner for the world's victims" and "an envoy of risk, honesty and commitment".
As a composer, pianist, organist and performance artist, Galás has presented mainly her own work, but her live performances have also included works by other musicians, such as the avant-garde composers
Iannis Xenakis
Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde ...
and
Vinko Globokar
Vinko Globokar (born 7 July 1934) is a French-Slovenian avant-garde composer and trombonist.
Globokar's music uses unconventional and extended techniques, places great emphasis on spontaneity and creativity, and often relies on improvisation. Hi ...
,
jazz
Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...
musician
Bobby Bradford
Bobby Lee Bradford (born July 19, 1934) is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, bandleader, and composer. In addition to his solo work, Bradford is noted for his work with John Carter, Vinny Golia and Ornette Coleman. In October 2009, Bradfo ...
, saxophonist
John Zorn
John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, conductor, saxophonist, arranger and producer who "deliberately resists category". Zorn's avant-garde and experimental approaches to composition and improvisation are inclusive of jaz ...
, and
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...
bassist
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...
. Galás's recordings have also included collaborations, some of which are with the bands
Recoil
Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force requ ...
and
Erasure
Erasure () is an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1985, consisting of lead vocalist and songwriter Andy Bell with songwriter, producer and keyboardist Vince Clarke, previously known as co-founder of the band Depeche Mode and a membe ...
, instrumentalist
Barry Adamson
Barry Adamson (born 11 June 1958)
Discography Studio Albums
Compilation Albums
EPs
Singles
Soundtracks
References
External links
*
Adamson's art-house
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adamson, Barry
1958 births
Living people
People from ...
, and musician Can Oral (also known as Khan), among others.
[Galás, Diamanda. ''Defixiones, Will & Testament'' Interview in Italy. Retrieved January 9, 2013 ]
Background and education
Galás was born and raised in
San Diego
San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...
, California, to a
Maniot
The Maniots or Maniates ( el, Μανιάτες) are the inhabitants of Mani Peninsula, located in western Laconia and eastern Messenia, in the southern Peloponnese, Greece. They were also formerly known as Mainotes and the peninsula as ''Maina''. ...
Greek-American mother from
Dover, New Hampshire
Dover is a city in Strafford County, New Hampshire, United States. The population was 32,741 at the 2020 census, making it the largest city in the New Hampshire Seacoast region and the fifth largest municipality in the state. It is the county se ...
, Georgianna Koutrelakos-Galás, and an Egyptian-American father from
Lynn, Massachusetts
Lynn is the eighth-largest municipality in Massachusetts and the largest city in Essex County. Situated on the Atlantic Ocean, north of the Boston city line at Suffolk Downs, Lynn is part of Greater Boston's urban inner core. Settled by E ...
, James Galás, both of whom belonged to the
Greek Orthodox
The term Greek Orthodox Church (Greek language, Greek: Ἑλληνορθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία, ''Ellinorthódoxi Ekklisía'', ) has two meanings. The broader meaning designates "the Eastern Orthodox Church, entire body of Orthodox (Chalced ...
culture but considered themselves agnostic.
Her father's Greek ancestors were from
Smyrna
Smyrna ( ; grc, Σμύρνη, Smýrnē, or , ) was a Greek city located at a strategic point on the Aegean coast of Anatolia. Due to its advantageous port conditions, its ease of defence, and its good inland connections, Smyrna rose to promi ...
,
Pontus
Pontus or Pontos may refer to:
* Short Latin name for the Pontus Euxinus, the Greek name for the Black Sea (aka the Euxine sea)
* Pontus (mythology), a sea god in Greek mythology
* Pontus (region), on the southern coast of the Black Sea, in modern ...
, and
Chios
Chios (; el, Χίος, Chíos , traditionally known as Scio in English) is the fifth largest Greek island, situated in the northern Aegean Sea. The island is separated from Turkey by the Chios Strait. Chios is notable for its exports of mastic ...
, while one of his grandmothers was an Egyptian from
Alexandria
Alexandria ( or ; ar, ٱلْإِسْكَنْدَرِيَّةُ ; grc-gre, Αλεξάνδρεια, Alexándria) is the second largest city in Egypt, and the largest city on the Mediterranean coast. Founded in by Alexander the Great, Alexandria ...
. Galás does not refer to her Smyrniote and Pontic ancestry as "
Turkish
Turkish may refer to:
*a Turkic language spoken by the Turks
* of or about Turkey
** Turkish language
*** Turkish alphabet
** Turkish people, a Turkic ethnic group and nation
*** Turkish citizen, a citizen of Turkey
*** Turkish communities and mi ...
", but rather as
Anatolia
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
n.
Galás's first contact with music was during her childhood in San Diego, where her parents lived and worked as teachers. Her father, who was a gospel choir director, taught her how to play the piano when she was three years old, while introducing her later to classical music, the New Orleans jazz tradition,
rebetika
Rebetiko ( el, ρεμπέτικο, ), plural rebetika ( ), occasionally transliterated as rembetiko or rebetico, is a term used today to designate originally disparate kinds of urban Greek music which have come to be grouped together since the s ...
and other classics of his Greek heritage, some
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
standards, and other historical music genres. Galas also took cello and violin lessons, and studied a wide range of musical forms.
[Diamanda Galás. Interview in kultur & nöje. Sweden. April 1, 2011. ] By the age of fourteen, she had been playing gigs in San Diego with her father's band, performing Greek and Arabic music, and she had also made her orchestral debut with the
San Diego Symphony
The San Diego Symphony is an American symphony orchestra, based in San Diego, California. The orchestra is resident at Copley Symphony Hall. The orchestra also serves as the orchestra for the San Diego Opera.
History
On December 6th 1910, the ...
as the soloist for
Beethoven
Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classical ...
's ''
Piano Concerto No. 1''.
But while her father encouraged her to play the piano, he did not want her to sing because he believed that singing was for "hookers and idiots."
Galás and her brother Phillip-Dimitri acquired a taste for dark literature at an early age. Their inspirations were
Marquis de Sade
Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814), was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer famous for his literary depictions of a libertine sexuality as well as numerous accusat ...
,
Friedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (; or ; 15 October 1844 – 25 August 1900) was a German philosopher, prose poet, cultural critic, philologist, and composer whose work has exerted a profound influence on contemporary philosophy. He began his ...
,
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Paul Artaud, better known as Antonin Artaud (; 4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French writer, poet, dramatist, visual artist, essayist, actor and theatre director. He is widely recognized as a major figure of the E ...
, and
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
.
In the 1970s, Galás studied
biochemistry
Biochemistry or biological chemistry is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. A sub-discipline of both chemistry and biology, biochemistry may be divided into three fields: structural biology, enzymology and ...
at the
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California (USC, SC, or Southern Cal) is a Private university, private research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Founded in 1880 by Robert M. Widney, it is the oldest private research university in C ...
, specializing in
immunology
Immunology is a branch of medicineImmunology for Medical Students, Roderick Nairn, Matthew Helbert, Mosby, 2007 and biology that covers the medical study of immune systems in humans, animals, plants and sapient species. In such we can see there ...
and
hematology
Hematology ( always spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the produc ...
studies.
Her post-graduate studies include a master's program in the music department of the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Insti ...
, which encouraged her to work at its Center for Music Experiment to develop her own vocal technique.
Outside academia, Galás's vocal training was supported by private lessons in San Diego with bel canto tutor Frank Kelly, and with voice coaches Vicky Hall in Berlin and Barbara Maier in New York.
Music
Early years (1970s–1986)
In the early 1970s, Galás and her friend contra-bass player
Mark Dresser
Mark Dresser (born September 26, 1952) is an American double bass player and composer.
Career
Dresser was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. In the 1970s, he was a member of Black Music Infinity led by Stanley Crouch and performed w ...
joined the jazz band Black Music Infinity, which included drummer
Stanley Crouch
Stanley Lawrence Crouch (December 14, 1945 – September 16, 2020) was an American poet, music and cultural critic, syndicated columnist, novelist, and biographer. He was known for his jazz criticism and his 2000 novel ''Don't the Moon Look ...
, trumpeter
Bobby Bradford
Bobby Lee Bradford (born July 19, 1934) is an American jazz trumpeter, cornetist, bandleader, and composer. In addition to his solo work, Bradford is noted for his work with John Carter, Vinny Golia and Ornette Coleman. In October 2009, Bradfo ...
, cornetist
Butch Morris
Lawrence Douglas "Butch" Morris (February 10, 1947 – January 29, 2013) was an American cornetist, composer and conductor. He was known for pioneering his structural improvisation method, ''Conduction'', which he utilized on many recordings.
B ...
, flutist
James Newton
James W. Newton (born May 1, 1953) is an American jazz and classical flutist.
Biography
He was born in Los Angeles, California, United States. From his earliest years, James Newton grew up immersed in the sounds of African-American music, inclu ...
, and saxophonist
David Murray. She later collaborated with members of the San Diego band
CETA VI, which included, among others, jazz saxophonist
Jim French, with whom Galás went on to record and release her first compositions, as part of the album
''If Looks Could Kill'' (1979), together with guitarist and sound engineer
Henry Kaiser
Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of ...
.
At the same time, Galás was preparing for her live solo debut, which took place at the 1979
Festival d'Avignon
The ''Festival d'Avignon'', or Avignon Festival, is an annual arts festival held in the French city of Avignon every summer in July in the courtyard of the Palais des Papes as well as in other locations of the city. Founded in 1947 by Jean Vila ...
, in France, where she was doing post-graduate studies. It was a performance of
Vinko Globokar
Vinko Globokar (born 7 July 1934) is a French-Slovenian avant-garde composer and trombonist.
Globokar's music uses unconventional and extended techniques, places great emphasis on spontaneity and creativity, and often relies on improvisation. Hi ...
's ''Un Jour Comme un Autre'' (A Day Like Any Other), an opera based on
Amnesty International
Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and sup ...
's documentation about the arrest and torture of a Turkish woman for alleged treason.
Globokar was the director of the Instruments and Voice department at the music and sound research center
IRCAM
IRCAM (French: ''Ircam, '', English: Institute for Research and Coordination in Acoustics/Music) is a French institute dedicated to the research of music and sound, especially in the fields of avant garde and electro-acoustical art music. It is ...
(Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique), where Galás had been doing further experimentation on her vocal technique.
During her time in Paris, Galás also met the Greek composer and architect
Iannis Xenakis
Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde ...
, whose composition ''Akanthos'' (1977) she sang with IRCAM's Ensemble InterContemporain in 1980, while she was still in Europe. After her return to the US, Galás performed one more work by Xenakis, his composition ''N'Shima'' (1975), in the US premiere of it in New York in 1981, alongside soprano Genevieve Renon-McLaughlin, who sang one of the two vocal parts of this piece.
Her first solo album, ''
The Litanies of Satan
''The Litanies of Satan'' is the debut album by American avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás, released in the United Kingdom by Y Records in 1982; it was released in her home country in 1989.
Content
The text for "The Litanies of Satan" is tak ...
'' (1982), was also an operatic work. It included only two compositions: a twelve-minute piece entitled 'Wild Women with Steak-Knives', which was described by Galás in the album notes as tragedy-grotesque deriving from her work "Eyes Without Blood", and another lengthy composition, 'Litanies of Satan', an adaptation to music of a section from
Charles Baudelare's poem
''Les Fleurs du Mal''. Her second album, ''
Diamanda Galas'' (1984), also contained two lengthy compositions. They were 'Panoptikon', which was dedicated to
Jack Henry Abbott
Jack Henry Abbott (January 21, 1944 – February 10, 2002) was an American criminal and author. With a long history of criminal convictions, Abbott's writing concerning his life and experiences was lauded by a number of well-known literary crit ...
, whose 1981 autobiographical book ''
In the Belly of the Beast
''In the Belly of the Beast'' is a book written by Jack Henry Abbott and published in 1981.
Jack Henry Abbott was an American prisoner and the book consists of his letters to Norman Mailer about his experiences in what Abbott saw as a brutal ...
'' described his experience of the prison system, and 'Tragoudia Apo To Aima Exoun Fonos' ('Song From the Blood of Those Murdered'), a Greek-language piece dedicated to those political prisoners who were either murdered or executed during the
Greek military regimes in the years 1967–74.
Mute Records (1986–2008)
Galás began writing and performing on the subject of
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
around 1984, while living in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
.
This theme resulted in the trilogy ''
Masque of the Red Death
"The Masque of the Red Death" (originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy") is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague ...
'', an operatic trilogy which included ''
The Divine Punishment
''The Divine Punishment'' is the third album by American avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás, released on June 30, 1986 by record label Mute Records, Mute.
Content
''The Divine Punishment'' is the first instalment of her "Masque of the Red Deat ...
'' (1986), ''
Saint of the Pit'' (1986) and ''
You Must Be Certain of the Devil'' (1988). In these three works Galás detailed the suffering of people with
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
. Shortly after the recording of the trilogy's first volume began, her brother, playwright Philip-Dimitri Galás, became sick with AIDS, which inspired her to join activist groups that raised awareness about this new illness. Her brother died in 1986, just before the completion of the trilogy.
Taking a break from her own recordings, Galás appeared on the 1989 studio album ''
Moss Side Story
''Moss Side Story'' is the debut album of British musician Barry Adamson released in 1989. The album is a concept album, a soundtrack album to a non-existent crime film.
The music is almost completely instrumental except for occasional screams, ...
'' by
Barry Adamson
Barry Adamson (born 11 June 1958)
Discography Studio Albums
Compilation Albums
EPs
Singles
Soundtracks
References
External links
*
Adamson's art-house
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Adamson, Barry
1958 births
Living people
People from ...
(formerly of
Magazine
A magazine is a periodical publication, generally published on a regular schedule (often weekly or monthly), containing a variety of content. They are generally financed by advertising, purchase price, prepaid subscriptions, or by a combinatio ...
and
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds are an Australian rock music, rock band formed in 1983 by vocalist Nick Cave, multi-instrumentalist Mick Harvey and guitarist-vocalist Blixa Bargeld. The band has featured international personnel throughout its care ...
). In ''Moss Side Story'', which was described by the press as a "soundtrack for a non-existent film-noir", Galás sang the opening track, 'On the Wrong Side of Relaxation'. In 1992, Galás released the album ''
Vena Cava
In anatomy, the venae cavae (; singular: vena cava ; ) are two large veins (great vessels) that return deoxygenated blood from the body into the heart. In humans they are the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava, and both empty into the ...
'', a series of unaccompanied voice pieces recorded in New York during a live performance at
The Kitchen
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...
.
For her next record, Galás changed stylistic direction by turning to the
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...
tradition and interpreting a wide range of songs with only a piano and solo voice. This stylistic turn produced the studio album ''
The Singer'' (1992), on which she
covered
Cover or covers may refer to:
Packaging
* Another name for a lid
* Cover (philately), generic term for envelope or package
* Album cover, the front of the packaging
* Book cover or magazine cover
** Book design
** Back cover copy, part of co ...
songs by
Willie Dixon
William James Dixon (July 1, 1915January 29, 1992) was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. He was proficient in playing both the upright bass and the guitar, and sang with a distinctive voice, but he ...
,
Roy Acuff
Roy Claxton Acuff (September 15, 1903 – November 23, 1992) was an American country music singer, fiddler, and promoter. Known as the "King of Country Music", Acuff is often credited with moving the genre from its early string band and "hoedown ...
, and
Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Jalacy J. "Screamin' Jay" Hawkins (July 18, 1929 – February 12, 2000) was an American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer. Famed chiefly for his powerful, operatic vocal delivery and wildly theatrical performances of s ...
, as well as "
Gloomy Sunday
"Gloomy Sunday" ( Hungarian: ''Szomorú vasárnap''), also known as the "Hungarian Suicide Song", is a popular song composed by Hungarian pianist and composer Rezső Seress and published in 1933.
The original lyrics were titled "Vége a vilá ...
", a song written by Hungarian pianist and composer
Rezső Seress
Rezső Seress (Hungarian: ''Seress Rezső,'' ; 3 November 1889 – 12 January 1968) was a Hungarian pianist and composer. Some sources give his birth name as Rudolf ("Rudi") Spitzer.
Biography
Rezső Seress lived most of his life in povert ...
in 1933 and translated into English by
Desmond Carter
Herbert Desmond Carter (15 June 1895 – 3 February 1939) was a British lyricist who worked with George and Ira Gershwin, Ivor Novello, and others, and also wrote one of the first English language versions of the notorious "suicide song", "G ...
. This material formed the basis of the video ''Judgement Day'', which was released in 1993.
In the next three years, Galás returned to collaborations with other musicians. She first worked with
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band formed in London in 1968. The group comprised vocalist Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham. With a heavy, guitar-driven sound, they are ci ...
bassist
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...
, a longtime admirer of her work, to write material for a record, and the album ''
The Sporting Life'' was produced with him in 1994. A tour that followed the album's release saw the two musicians performing together live on stage as well as on the popular
MTV
MTV (Originally an initialism of Music Television) is an American cable channel that launched on August 1, 1981. Based in New York City, it serves as the flagship property of the MTV Entertainment Group, part of Paramount Media Networks, a di ...
show
The Jon Stewart Show
''The Jon Stewart Show'' is a late night talk show that was hosted by comedian Jon Stewart. The program premiered on MTV in 1993 as a 30-minute daily offering and became one of the network’s more popular shows.
Through a series of events that ...
. Then, in the same year, two of Galás's songs from her previous album were featured on the soundtrack for
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...
's film ''
Natural Born Killers
''Natural Born Killers'' is a 1994 American crime film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore. The film tells the story of two victims of traumatic childho ...
''. In 1995, Galás contributed vocals to the
eponymous album of British synth-pop duo
Erasure
Erasure () is an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1985, consisting of lead vocalist and songwriter Andy Bell with songwriter, producer and keyboardist Vince Clarke, previously known as co-founder of the band Depeche Mode and a membe ...
at the invitation of the lead singer,
Andy Bell, and the following year she took part in the album ''
Closed on Account of Rabies
''Closed On Account of Rabies'' (1997) is a double- CD with poems and tales of Edgar Allan Poe performed by various artists, and produced by Hal Willner. It is one of numerous multi-artist tribute albums that Willner has produced, as well as one ...
'', a tribute to
Edgar Allan Poe
Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is wide ...
which also included
Iggy Pop
James Newell Osterberg Jr. (born April 21, 1947), known professionally as Iggy Pop, is an American singer, musician, songwriter and actor. Called the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, Godfather of Punk", he was the vocalist and lyricist of ...
,
Debbie Harry
Deborah Ann Harry (born Angela Trimble; July 1, 1945) is an American singer, songwriter and actress, best known as the lead vocalist of the band Blondie. Four of her songs with the band reached on the US charts between 1979 and 1981.
Born in ...
and
Marianne Faithfull
Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single " As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during the British I ...
, who lent 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
''Malediction and Prayer'' is a live performance album by avant-garde musician Diamanda Galás, released on 8 May 1998 by Asphodel and Mute Records. It features recordings from her concert tour "Malediction and Prayer: Concert for the Damned" b ...
'', which was recorded live in 1996 and 1997.
In 2000, Galás worked with
Recoil
Recoil (often called knockback, kickback or simply kick) is the rearward thrust generated when a gun is being discharged. In technical terms, the recoil is a result of conservation of momentum, as according to Newton's third law the force requ ...
by contributing her voice to the album ''
Liquid
A liquid is a nearly incompressible fluid that conforms to the shape of its container but retains a (nearly) constant volume independent of pressure. As such, it is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, gas, a ...
''. She was 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.
![Diamanda Galas, QE Hall, London 18-20](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Diamanda_Galas%2C_QE_Hall%2C_London_18-20.03.08_%28number3%29.jpg)
Galás's next project revolved around the
Armenian
Armenian may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to Armenia, a country in the South Caucasus region of Eurasia
* Armenians, the national people of Armenia, or people of Armenian descent
** Armenian Diaspora, Armenian communities across the ...
,
Anatolian-Greek and
Assyrian
Assyrian may refer to:
* Assyrian people, the indigenous ethnic group of Mesopotamia.
* Assyria, a major Mesopotamian kingdom and empire.
** Early Assyrian Period
** Old Assyrian Period
** Middle Assyrian Empire
** Neo-Assyrian Empire
* Assyrian ...
genocides that occurred between 1914 and 1923. This work took the title 'Defixiones – Will and Testament' in reference to the last wishes of the dead who had been taken to their graves under extreme circumstances, as 'defixiones' in Greece and Asia Minor is associated with the warnings written on gravestones by relatives of the dead to warn people against desecrating them. This material formed part of the 80-minute long album ''
Defixiones: Will and Testament'' (2003), which was released simultaneously with ''
La Serpenta Canta
''La serpenta canta'' is a live performance album by avant-garde musician Diamanda Galás, released on 24 November 2003 by Mute Records.
Track listing
Personnel
*Diamanda Galás – vocals, piano, arrangement
;Production and additional ...
'' (2003), a live album including cover versions recorded between May 1999 and November 2002. One of the unaccompanied vocal pieces from ''Defixiones: Will and Testament'' (2003), "Orders from the Dead", was later used on the album ''
Aealo
''Aealo'' is the tenth full-length album by Greek extreme metal band Rotting Christ. It was released on 15 February 2010 via Season of Mist.
Vocalist Sakis Tolis stated that "AEALO is the transcription of the Ancient Greek word 'ΕΑΛΩ' into ...
'' (2010) by Greek
black metal
Black metal is an extreme metal, extreme subgenre of heavy metal music. Common traits include Tempo#Beats per minute, fast tempos, a Screaming (music)#Black metal, shrieking vocal style, heavily distorted Electric guitar, guitars played with t ...
band
Rotting Christ
Rotting Christ is a Greek black metal band formed in 1987. They are noted for being one of the first black metal bands within this region, as well as a premier act within the European underground metal scene. They are also responsible for creati ...
.
In 2008, Galás released her seventh live album, ''
Guilty Guilty Guilty
''Guilty Guilty Guilty'' is a live performance album by avant-garde musician Diamanda Galás, released on 1 April 2008 by Mute Records.
Track listing
Personnel
*Diamanda Galás – vocals, arrangement, production, art direction
;Producti ...
'', a collection of cover songs that she used to play as a piano accompanist in her father's band when she was young. The album emerged from material she began to work on around the time when her parents – to whom it is dedicated – happened to stay in the same hospital at the same time for different treatments; seeing how they handled it and how they held hands and took courage from each other during that time reminded her of the love songs she had learned in her father's band. Galás has stated that these songs also made her explore her own emotions at a time when a long-term personal relationship had ended, particularly Henderson's and Brown's "
The Thrill Is Gone
"The Thrill Is Gone" is a slow minor-key blues song written by West Coast blues musician Roy Hawkins and Rick Darnell in 1951. Hawkins's recording of the song reached number six in the Billboard R&B chart in 1951. In 1970, "The Thrill Is Gon ...
", a song performed by
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool".
Baker earned much attention and ...
and others. This set of new re-interpretations of old, love songs was recorded live at Galás's Valentine's Day concert at New York's
Knitting Factory
The Knitting Factory is a nightclub in New York City that features eclectic music and entertainment. After opening in 1987, various other locations were opened in the United States.
The Knitting Factory gave its audience poetry readings, perform ...
in 2006.
Intravenal Sound Operations (2009–present)
After 2009 Galás found herself without a record deal, and until 2016 she was remixing and remastering her earlier works as well as recording some new songs which were made available online digitally as self-released singles. Galás's focus in this period was on regaining ownership and control of her entire catalogue, since the selling of her records by
Mute
Muteness is a speech disorder in which a person lacks the ability to speak.
Mute or the Mute may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Film and television
* ''Mute'' (2005 film), a short film by Melissa Joan Hart
* ''Mute'' (2018 film), a scien ...
to
EMI
EMI Group Limited (originally an initialism for Electric and Musical Industries, also referred to as EMI Records Ltd. or simply EMI) was a British transnational conglomerate founded in March 1931 in London. At the time of its break-up in 201 ...
, which passed them to
BMG BMG may refer to:
Organizations
* Music publishing companies:
** Bertelsmann Music Group, a 1987–2008 division of Bertelsmann that was purchased by Sony on October 1, 2008
*** Sony BMG, a 2004–2008 joint venture of Bertelsmann and Sony that wa ...
, had made Galás's back catalogue unavailable. In the meantime, two new albums, ''
All the Way
All the Way may refer to:
Film and television
* ''All the Way'', an Australian film of 1998 directed by Marque Owen
* ''All the Way'' (2001 film), a film directed by Shi Runjiu
* ''All the Way'' (film), a 2016 adaptation of Robert Schenkkan's ...
'' (2017) and ''At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem'' (2017), were released simultaneously through her own label, Intravenal Sound Operations, and a world tour followed.
In 2019, Galás regained the rights of her back catalogue and her discography was made available again. The result was the release of a remastered version of her debut album ''
The Litanies of Satan
''The Litanies of Satan'' is the debut album by American avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás, released in the United Kingdom by Y Records in 1982; it was released in her home country in 1989.
Content
The text for "The Litanies of Satan" is tak ...
'' (1982), which had been originally released on
Y Records
Y Records was a British independent record label set up in 1980 by Dick O'Dell in the United Kingdom, and distributed by Rough Trade.
History
Artists included the Slits, Shriekback and a number of groups that were associated with the Bristol ...
. This was followed by the 21-minute piano work ''De-formation: Piano Variations'' (2020), which was based on music for the 1912 poem ''Das Fieberspital'' ''(The Fever Hospital)'' by the German expressionist writer
Georg Heym
Georg Theodor Franz Artur Heym (30 October 1887 – 16 January 1912) was a German writer. He is particularly known for his poetry, representative of early Expressionism.
Biography
Heym was born in Hirschberg, Lower Silesia, in 1887 to He ...
.
In August 2022, Galás released the studio album ''Broken Gargoyles''. The first incarnation of the work was played in July 2021 as a sound installation at the Nikolaikapelle (former Kapellen Leprosarium - Leper Sanctuary) in Hanover, Germany. Earlier versions had been performed at the
Dark Mofo
Dark Mofo is the winter version of the MONA FOMA festival, also held in Tasmania. With many of its events taking place at night, it celebrates the darkness of the southern winter solstice and features many musical acts, large scale light insta ...
festival and other live music events, and sections of it had also been included in different multi-media installations. The inspiration came from a pre-First World War poem by the German poet
Georg Heym
Georg Theodor Franz Artur Heym (30 October 1887 – 16 January 1912) was a German writer. He is particularly known for his poetry, representative of early Expressionism.
Biography
Heym was born in Hirschberg, Lower Silesia, in 1887 to He ...
that Galás came across in a book about German expressionist art and poetry. This led her to other cultural artefacts from the period, including a 1924 book by anti-war campaigner
Ernst Friedrich
Ernst Friedrich (25 February 1894 – 2 May 1967) was a German anarcho-pacifist.
Life
Childhood and youth
Ernst Friedrich was born in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) as the 13th child of a cleaning lady and a saddler. After finishing el ...
of photographs showing soldiers with damaged faces, which were also responsible for the album title, as 'gargoyles' was a term used by hospital staff to refer to those soldiers. The album comprises two long pieces titled 'Mutilatus' and 'Abiectio'.
Art
Performance art
Although Galás found herself in the mid-70s studying and practicing music and performance in the West Coast, where performance artists tended to be much more reliant on text and closer to the theatrical event than their European and East-Coast counterparts, her use of text did not restrict her performances to a script, as her introduction of electronically processed sounds shifted her attention towards vocal improvisation to allow more freedom.
Her first public performances at New York's
The Kitchen
The Kitchen is a non-profit, multi-disciplinary avant-garde performance and experimental art institution located at 512 West 19th Street, between Tenth and Eleventh Avenues in the Chelsea neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. It was founde ...
and the 1980
Moers Festival
The Moers Festival is an annual international music festival in Moers, Germany. The festival has changed from concentrating on free jazz to including world and pop music, though it still invites many avant-garde jazz musicians. Performers at Moers ...
reflect this direction, and works such as 'Wild Women with Steak-Knives' and 'Panoptikon', which were developed in this period and used heavily the improvisation element and vocal experimentation, were later recorded and released as music records for her first two solo albums in 1982 and 1984 respectively.
In 1990, Galás selected material from her AIDS trilogy and created a performance piece for the
Cathedral of St. John the Divine
The Cathedral of St. John the Divine (sometimes referred to as St. John's and also nicknamed St. John the Unfinished) is the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of New York. It is at 1047 Amsterdam Avenue in the Morningside Heights neighborhood ...
in New York. With a theme addressing the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...
's indifference to sufferers of HIV and Galás's introduction of theatrical props, such as artificial blood and special lights, her performance, for some members of her audience, "combined ululating shrieks, whispers and howls with an intensity that left the audience stunned." The performance was documented in photographs and audio, and a live album was released under the title ''
Plague Mass'' in 1991.
Painting
Galás has stated that, for her, painting acts as "an exorcism of that which is troubling
erdeeply", and that the visual language she uses allows her "to paint an analogue of the experience, the misery, and therefore get rid of it for the time being. But only because of that vocabulary", she adds.
Commentators suggest that Galás's paintings look to the past by presenting stylistic similarities with artworks by
Expressionist
Expressionism is a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Northern Europe around the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it rad ...
artists such as
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images.
His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...
,
Paul Klee
Paul Klee (; 18 December 1879 – 29 June 1940) was a Swiss-born German artist. His highly individual style was influenced by movements in art that included expressionism, cubism, and surrealism. Klee was a natural draftsman who experimented wi ...
and
Jean Dubuffet
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet (31 July 1901 – 12 May 1985) was a French Painting, painter and sculpture, sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so-called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what ...
.
One of the Expressionist artists that Galás mentions as influential to her is the Austrian painter and playwright
Oskar Kokoschka
Oskar Kokoschka (1 March 1886 – 22 February 1980) was an Austrian artist, poet, playwright, and teacher best known for his intense Expressionism, expressionistic portraits and landscapes, as well as his theories on vision that influenced the ...
, especially with his short play ''
Murderer, the Hope of Women
''Murderer, the Hope of Women'' is a short Expressionist play written by the painter Oskar Kokoschka. It focuses more on the actions and appearances of its characters than on their dialogue. Its performance was received with much criticism, as it ...
'' (1909), which has very little text but creates 'explosions' by being immensely expressive. According to art historian Donald Kuspit, looking back to early modern art, particularly to Expressionism, was an interest in subjects from that period by late-70s and early-80s
Neo-expressionist
Neo-expressionism is a style of late modernist or early-postmodern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s. Neo-expressionists were sometimes called ''Transavantgarde'', ''Junge Wilde'' or ''Neue Wilden'' ('The new wild ones'; 'New ...
artists, such as
Georg Baselitz
Georg Baselitz (born 23 January 1938) is a German painter, sculptor and graphic artist. In the 1960s he became well known for his figurative, expressive paintings. In 1969 he began painting his subjects upside down in an effort to overcome the ...
,
Paula Rego
Paula or PAULA may refer to:
Arts and entertainment Fictional characters
* Paula, in video game ''EarthBound''
* Paula, in ''The Larry Sanders Show''
* Paula Campbell (''EastEnders''), in 2003
Film and television
* ''Paula'' (1915 film), a si ...
and
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat (; December 22, 1960 – August 12, 1988) was an American artist who rose to success during the 1980s as part of the Neo-expressionism movement.
Basquiat first achieved fame as part of the graffiti duo SAMO, alongside Al ...
, who painted objects and human forms in a distorted way, yet not entirely un-recognisable. Galás has also been compared to the artist
David Wojnarowicz
David Michael Wojnarowicz ( (September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist, and AIDS activist prominent in the East Village art scene. He incorp ...
, whose work is seen as falling within the wider limits of neo-expressionism, for the similarities in which they invite horror through immediate and explicit expression. For Galás, the visual art that she does "has the same impulse and subject material" as her music, because she cannot interrupt the creative process when working on a subjects, "so these are simply different treatments of similar subjects."
Many of Galás's paintings often borrow their subjects from themes she has explored in her performances and recordings, looking back to the same historical events that have been inspiring her to write lyrics and compose music, as is made apparent by the use of titles such as 'Ragip:Turkish Prison for Infidels', 'Medusa', 'Artemis', Cleopatra', 'Mani: Me Epifilakzin – Salt Maketh A Man Who Fears No God' and 'Ethiopian Martyr/Amharic Brother to Greek Orthodox, Egyptian Coptic and Palestinian Orthodox', among others.
In 2011, Galás donated a painting to the Coilhouse International Fundraising Silent Auction, which was part of The Black & White & Red All Over Ball organized by New York's digital and print magazine, and corresponding blog,
Coilhouse
''Coilhouse'' was an American digital and print magazine, and corresponding blog. It was founded in 2007 by Nadya Lev, Meredith Yayanos
Meredith Anne Yayanos is a California-based violinist, vocalist and thereminist. Her work has been featured ...
. Galás's work was a luminescent, or a 'glow-in-the-dark fabric painting', as described by the magazine editors, featuring "mysterious and ferocious organic shapes painted on a thick piece of black fabric and adorned with a bright prism″.
Installation
In 1988, Galás provided the music to the audiovisual installation ''Faded Wallpaper'' (1988) by British artist
Tina Keane
Tina Keane (born 1940) is a British artist who has worked with film, video, digital media, and performance, and been a forerunner of multimedia art in the UK. Reflecting a feminist perspective, her works have often explored gender roles, sexual ...
, which included a neon sign and a video work that featured, among other material, extracts from
Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (; née Perkins; July 3, 1860 – August 17, 1935), also known by her first married name Charlotte Perkins Stetson, was an American humanist, novelist, writer, lecturer, advocate for social reform, and eugenicist. She wa ...
's 1892 story '
The Yellow Wallpaper
"The Yellow Wallpaper" (original title: "The Yellow Wall-paper. A Story") is a short story by American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman, first published in January 1892 in '' The New England Magazine''. It is regarded as an important early work ...
'.
In 2010, a four-minute video artwork entitled ''A Fire in My Belly'' (1992), which was made using a composition by Galás from her album ''Plague Mass'' (1991) and a film by the artist
David Wojnarowicz
David Michael Wojnarowicz ( (September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist, and AIDS activist prominent in the East Village art scene. He incorp ...
, was featured in the exhibition Hide/Seek at
Smithsonian's
National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to:
*National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra
*National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred
*National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C.
*National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...
. The artwork was deemed by some groups to be controversial and it was removed from that show, with Galas immediately responding to the Smithsonian's removal with a written statement that was circulated in the press.
In 2011, Galás collaborated with Soviet
dissident
A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established Political system, political or Organized religion, religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and ...
artist Vladislav Shabalin on ''Aquarium'', a sound installation inspired by the environmental disaster in the
Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf of Mexico ( es, Golfo de México) is an oceanic basin, ocean basin and a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, largely surrounded by the North American continent. It is bounded on the northeast, north and northwest by the Gulf Coast of ...
. The event took place at Leonhardskirche in
Basel
, french: link=no, Bâlois(e), it, Basilese
, neighboring_municipalities= Allschwil (BL), Hégenheim (FR-68), Binningen (BL), Birsfelden (BL), Bottmingen (BL), Huningue (FR-68), Münchenstein (BL), Muttenz (BL), Reinach (BL), Riehen (BS ...
(Switzerland) from June 12 to 19. ''Aquarium'' was then installed at the church of San Francesco in
Udine
Udine ( , ; fur, Udin; la, Utinum) is a city and ''comune'' in north-eastern Italy, in the middle of the Friuli Venezia Giulia region, between the Adriatic Sea and the Alps (''Alpi Carniche''). Its population was 100,514 in 2012, 176,000 with t ...
(Italy), at the festival "Vicino/Lontano", from May 9 to 12, 2013.
In July 2020, Galás presented via Fridman Gallery's online space a work inspired by poetry and visuals related to physical and mental scars in soldiers who were injured in the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
. With collaborators such as artist and sound engineer Daniel Neumann, video artist Carlton Bright, and artist Robert Knocke on a guest appearance, Galás produced 'Broken Gargoyles', an installation based on the words of German poet
Georg Heym
Georg Theodor Franz Artur Heym (30 October 1887 – 16 January 1912) was a German writer. He is particularly known for his poetry, representative of early Expressionism.
Biography
Heym was born in Hirschberg, Lower Silesia, in 1887 to He ...
and on photographs by
Ernst Friedrich
Ernst Friedrich (25 February 1894 – 2 May 1967) was a German anarcho-pacifist.
Life
Childhood and youth
Ernst Friedrich was born in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland) as the 13th child of a cleaning lady and a saddler. After finishing el ...
.
Films
In 1984, Galás made a voice cameo appearance, performing the voices for the Japanese assassins and flying weapons in
Cannon Films
The Cannon Group, Inc. was an American group of companies, including Cannon Films, which produced films from 1967 to 1994. The extensive group also owned, amongst others, a large international cinema chain and a video film company that invested ...
'
Ninja III: The Domination.
This was followed by three more film appearances: she made the voice of the witch in
John Milius
John Frederick Milius (; born April 11, 1944) is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. He was a writer for the first two ''Dirty Harry'' films, received an Academy Award nomination as screenwriter of ''Apocalypse Now'' (1979), a ...
's ''
Conan the Barbarian (1982 film)
''Conan the Barbarian'' is a 1982 American epic sword and sorcery film directed by John Milius and written by Milius and Oliver Stone. Based on Robert E. Howard's Conan, the film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Earl Jones and tells t ...
'', the voice of the dead in
Wes Craven
Wesley Earl Craven (August 2, 1939 – August 30, 2015) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, actor, and editor. Craven has commonly been recognized as one of the greatest masters of the horror genre due to the cultural imp ...
's film ''
The Serpent and the Rainbow,'' and also offered her voice to
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five A ...
's 1992 film, ''
Bram Stoker's Dracula'', adding erotically charged moans, breathless sighs, and high-pitched shrieks. She also contributed the song "Exeloume" to the film. In 1995, Galás was commissioned to record a cover version of the Schwartz-Dietz song "
Dancing in the Dark" for
Clive Barker
Clive Barker (born 5 October 1952) is an English novelist, playwright, author, film director, and visual artist who came to prominence in the mid-1980s with a series of short stories, the ''Books of Blood'', which established him as a leading h ...
's film ''
Lord of Illusions
''Lord of Illusions'' is a 1995 American neo-noir supernatural horror film written and directed by Clive Barker, based on his own short story "The Last Illusion" published in 1985 in the anthology ''Books of Blood'' Volume 6. The same story introdu ...
,'' and her song appeared during the closing credits.
While two of her earlier recordings, "Le Treizième Revient" and "Exeloume", appeared on the soundtrack to
Derek Jarman
Michael Derek Elworthy Jarman (31 January 1942 – 19 February 1994) was an English artist, film maker, costume designer, stage designer, writer, gardener and gay rights activist.
Biography
Jarman was born at the Royal Victoria Nursing Home ...
's ''
The Last of England'' (1987), Galás herself also made an appearance in a film, as in 1990 she took part in
Rosa von Praunheim
Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky (born Holger Radtke; 25 November 1942), known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In ov ...
's documentary ''
Positive
Positive is a property of positivity and may refer to:
Mathematics and science
* Positive formula, a logical formula not containing negation
* Positive number, a number that is greater than 0
* Plus sign, the sign "+" used to indicate a posit ...
'' about AIDS in the New York gay scene. Also, excerpts from Galás's "I Put a Spell on You", "Vena Cava", "The Lord is My Shepherd" and "Judgement Day" can be heard in
Oliver Stone
William Oliver Stone (born September 15, 1946) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. Stone won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay as writer of '' Midnight Express'' (1978), and wrote the gangster film remake '' Sc ...
's ''
Natural Born Killers
''Natural Born Killers'' is a 1994 American crime film directed by Oliver Stone and starring Woody Harrelson, Juliette Lewis, Robert Downey Jr., Tommy Lee Jones, and Tom Sizemore. The film tells the story of two victims of traumatic childho ...
'', and her vocal improvisation in
Hideo Nakata
is a Japanese filmmaker.
Life and career
Nakata was born in Okayama, Japan. He is most familiar to Western audiences for his work on Japanese horror films such as ''Ring'' (1998), ''Ring 2'' (1999) and ''Dark Water'' (2002). Several of these we ...
's film ''
The Ring Two
''The Ring Two'' is a 2005 American supernatural psychological horror film and a sequel to the 2002 film '' The Ring'', which was a remake of the 1998 Japanese film ''Ring''. Hideo Nakata, director of the original Japanese film ''Ring'', on whi ...
'' (2005).
In 2011, Galás premiered ''Schrei 27'', a film made in collaboration with Italian filmmaker Davide Pepe. It was based on ''Schrei X'', a 1994 radio piece which was a co-commission to Galás by New American Radio and the Walker Art Center, and it has been described as an "unrelenting" portrait of a body suffering torture in a medical facility.
Most recently, Galás contributed work to
James Wan
James Wan (born 26 February 1977) is an Australian director, producer, screenwriter and comic book writer. He has primarily worked in the horror genre as the co-creator of the ''Saw'' and ''Insidious'' franchises and the creator of The Conjurin ...
's 2013 horror film, ''
The Conjuring
''The Conjuring'' is a 2013 American supernatural horror film directed by James Wan and written by Chad Hayes and Carey W. Hayes. It is the inaugural film in ''The Conjuring'' Universe franchise. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga star as Ed an ...
'', and her composition "Free Among the Dead" from the album ''
The Divine Punishment
''The Divine Punishment'' is the third album by American avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás, released on June 30, 1986 by record label Mute Records, Mute.
Content
''The Divine Punishment'' is the first instalment of her "Masque of the Red Deat ...
'' (1986) was featured in Zoe Mavroudi's documentary, ''Ruins: Chronicle of an HIV Witch-Hunt'' (2013).
Awards
In 2005, Galás was awarded Italy's prestigious
Demetrio Stratos
Efstratios Dimitriou ( el, Ευστράτιος Δημητρίου; 22 April 1945 – 13 June 1979), known professionally as Demetrio Stratos, was a Greek lyricist, multi-instrumentalist, music researcher, and co-founder, frontman and lead singe ...
International Career Award.
Activism
In 1986, Galás's brother, playwright Philip-Dimitri Galás, died from
AIDS
Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
, and this inspired her to join the AIDS activist group
ACT UP
AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) is an international, grassroots political group working to end the AIDS pandemic. The group works to improve the lives of people with AIDS through direct action, medical research, treatment and advocacy, ...
.
Her subsequent involvement in ACT UP's
Stop the Church
Stop the Church was a demonstration organized by members of AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) on December 10, 1989, that disrupted a Mass being said by Cardinal John O'Connor at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. One-hundred and el ...
demonstration resulted in her arrest on December 10, 1989, inside
Saint Patrick's Cathedral. The group was protesting
Cardinal O'Connor's opposition to AIDS education and to the distribution of condoms in public schools. She was among 53 people arrested that day.
Cultural references
Galás was mentioned in Michael Kustow's autobiographical book ''One in Four'' (1987), which uses the form of a journal to tell the author's story for the year 1986, when he was working as a Commissioning Editor for the Arts in the British TV station
Channel Four
Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a fourth television service i ...
. Galás's name does not appear directly in the book, but several references to her are made in a conversation between the author and the owner of the independent music label
Some Bizzare Records
Some Bizzare Records was a British independent record label owned by Stevo Pearce. The label was founded in 1981, with the release of ''Some Bizzare Album'', a compilation of unsigned bands including Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, the The, Neu Elect ...
Stevo Pearce, such as the use of cutting-edge technology in her live performances, her singing technique, and her Greek heritage. The following dialogue between these two persons illustrates best how this is an indirect mention of Galás:
My label's called Some Bizzare. ... I've got the best f***ing TV show you'll ever see. Drama, video art, music, films made by the bands themselves. You'll get ratings. Innovation? I can give Channel Four all the innovation it wants. Greek singer, for example. She wears twenty contact microphones round her body, like necklaces, she's an opera singer, it's pure unaccompanied transformed voice. It'll drive your viewers crazy!
Critical analyses
Musicologist Susan McClary has written about Galás in her study ''Feminist Endings: Music, Gender, and Sexuality'' (2002). McClary looks at Galás's work in a discussion about the representation of women in famous operas as an example of how Galás's approach confronts the narrow portrayal of women in those works and how she renovated the operatic tradition with subjects created through enactment.
Art historian
Nicholas Chare
Nicholas Chare is a professor of art history at the Université de Montréal. He received his Bachelor of Arts in English and the history of art from the University of Leeds in 1997, and his Master of Arts in the social history of art from the sam ...
discusses the concert performance ''
Todesfuge
"" (Deathfugue) is a German language poem written by the Romanian-born poet Paul Celan probably around 1945 and first published in 1948. It is one of his best-known and often-anthologized poems. Despite critics claiming that the lyrical finesse an ...
'' (''Death's Fugue'') by Diamanda Galás in his study ''Auschwitz and Afterimages: Abjection, Witnessing and Representation'' (2011). Chare is interested in the
Holocaust
The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; a ...
and representations of it in painting, photography, musical performance and museum artefacts, so in the section where he examines how Galás has transformed the words in the poem ''Todesfuge'', which was written by the Romanian-born German-language poet
Paul Celan
Paul Celan (; ; 23 November 1920 – c. 20 April 1970) was a Romanian-born German-language poet and translator. He was born as Paul Antschel to a Jewish family in Cernăuți (German: Czernowitz), in the then Kingdom of Romania (now Chernivtsi, U ...
, he looks at her work to investigate the relationship between style and horror in music, poetry and art.
Influences
Galás has cited multiple artists as influences on her music, including
Maria Callas
Maria Callas . (born Sophie Cecilia Kalos; December 2, 1923 – September 16, 1977) was an American-born Greek soprano who was one of the most renowned and influential opera singers of the 20th century. Many critics praised her ''bel cant ...
,
Annette Peacock
Annette Peacock is an American composer, musician, songwriter, producer, and arranger. She is a pioneer in electronic music who combined her voice with one of the first Moog synthesizers in the late 1960s.
Biography
Annette Peacock was writing ...
,
Patty Waters
Patty Waters (born March 11, 1946) is a jazz vocalist best known for her free jazz recordings in the 1960s for the ESP-Disk label.
Career
Waters was born in Iowa and started singing semi-professionally in high school. After school, she sang for t ...
,
John Lee Hooker
John Lee Hooker (August 22, 1912 or 1917 – June 21, 2001) was an American blues singer, songwriter, and guitarist. The son of a sharecropper, he rose to prominence performing an electric guitar-style adaptation of Delta blues. Hooker often ...
,
Johnny Cash
John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later stages of his ca ...
,
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson Sr. (September 23, 1930 – June 10, 2004) was an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. He is regarded as one of the most iconic and influential singers in history, and was often referred to by contemporaries as "The Ge ...
, and
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix; November 27, 1942September 18, 1970) was an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Although his mainstream career spanned only four years, he is widely regarded as one of the most ...
.
She is additionally influenced greatly by Greek and Middle Eastern styles of singing, and also blues music.
Galás has also expressed admiration for the comedian
Don Rickles
Donald Jay Rickles (May 8, 1926 – April 6, 2017) was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became known primarily for his insult comedy. His film roles include ''Run Silent, Run Deep'' (1958) with Clark Gable, Carl Reiner's '' Enter La ...
, who she has called "my hero", as well as the work of poets such as
Henri Michaux
Henri Michaux (; 24 May 1899 – 19 October 1984) was a Belgian-born French poet, writer and painter. Michaux is renowned for his strange, highly original poetry and prose, and also for his art: the Paris Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim ...
and
Georg Heym
Georg Theodor Franz Artur Heym (30 October 1887 – 16 January 1912) was a German writer. He is particularly known for his poetry, representative of early Expressionism.
Biography
Heym was born in Hirschberg, Lower Silesia, in 1887 to He ...
, and an array of other musicians, including
Chet Baker
Chesney Henry "Chet" Baker Jr. (December 23, 1929 – May 13, 1988) was an American jazz trumpeter and vocalist. He is known for major innovations in cool jazz that led him to be nicknamed the "Prince of Cool".
Baker earned much attention and ...
,
Doris Day
Doris Day (born Doris Mary Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019) was an American actress, singer, and activist. She began her career as a big band singer in 1939, achieving commercial success in 1945 with two No. 1 recordings, " Sent ...
,
The Supremes
The Supremes were an American girl group and a premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s. Founded as the Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, the Supremes were the most commercially successful of Motown's acts and the most successful ...
,
Gladys Knight
Gladys Maria Knight (born May 28, 1944), known as the "Empress of Soul", is an American singer, actress and businesswoman. A seven-time Grammy Award-winner, Knight recorded hits through the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s with her family group Gladys Kn ...
,
Miki Howard
Alicia Michelle "Miki" Howard (born September 30, 1960) is an American singer and actress who had a string of top 10 hit songs in the mid-1980s and early 1990s, including " Baby, Be Mine" (1987), " Come Share My Love" (1986) and "Love Under Ne ...
,
Whitney Houston
Whitney Elizabeth Houston (August 9, 1963 – February 11, 2012) was an American singer and actress. Nicknamed "The Voice", she is one of the bestselling music artists of all time, with sales of over 200 million records worldwide. Houston in ...
,
Amy Winehouse
Amy Jade Winehouse (14 September 1983 – 23 July 2011) was an English singer and songwriter. She was known for her deep, expressive contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres, including soul, rhythm and blues and jazz.
A membe ...
and
Adele
Adele Laurie Blue Adkins (, ; born 5 May 1988), professionally known by the mononym Adele, is an English singer and songwriter. After graduating in arts from the BRIT School in 2006, Adele signed a reco ...
.
Discography
Studio albums
*1979 – ''
If Looks Could Kill'' (w/
Jim French and
Henry Kaiser
Henry John Kaiser (May 9, 1882 – August 24, 1967) was an American industrialist who became known as the father of modern American shipbuilding. Prior to World War II, Kaiser was involved in the construction industry; his company was one of ...
)
*1982 – ''
The Litanies of Satan
''The Litanies of Satan'' is the debut album by American avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás, released in the United Kingdom by Y Records in 1982; it was released in her home country in 1989.
Content
The text for "The Litanies of Satan" is tak ...
''
*1984 – ''
Diamanda Galas''
*1986 – ''
The Divine Punishment
''The Divine Punishment'' is the third album by American avant-garde artist Diamanda Galás, released on June 30, 1986 by record label Mute Records, Mute.
Content
''The Divine Punishment'' is the first instalment of her "Masque of the Red Deat ...
''
*1986 – ''
Saint of the Pit''
*1988 – ''
You Must Be Certain of the Devil''
*1992 – ''
The Singer''
*1994 – ''
The Sporting Life'' (w/
John Paul Jones
John Paul Jones (born John Paul; July 6, 1747 July 18, 1792) was a Scottish-American naval captain who was the United States' first well-known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends among U.S political elites ( ...
and
Pete Thomas)
*2003 – ''
Defixiones: Will and Testament''
*2017 – ''
All the Way
All the Way may refer to:
Film and television
* ''All the Way'', an Australian film of 1998 directed by Marque Owen
* ''All the Way'' (2001 film), a film directed by Shi Runjiu
* ''All the Way'' (film), a 2016 adaptation of Robert Schenkkan's ...
''
*2020 – ''De-formation - Piano Variations: Das Fieberspital (The Fever Hospital)''
*2022 – ''Broken Gargoyles''
Live performance albums
*1982 - ''Diamanda Galás''
*1991 – ''
Plague Mass (1984 - End of the Epidemic)''
*1993 – ''
Vena Cava
In anatomy, the venae cavae (; singular: vena cava ; ) are two large veins (great vessels) that return deoxygenated blood from the body into the heart. In humans they are the superior vena cava and the inferior vena cava, and both empty into the ...
''
*1996 – ''
Schrei x
''Schrei x'' is a live performance album by avant-garde musician Diamanda Galás, released on 23 September 1996 by Mute Records.
Track listing
Personnel
*Diamanda Galás – vocals
;Production and additional personnel
*Blaise Dupuy  ...
''
*1998 – ''
Malediction and Prayer
''Malediction and Prayer'' is a live performance album by avant-garde musician Diamanda Galás, released on 8 May 1998 by Asphodel and Mute Records. It features recordings from her concert tour "Malediction and Prayer: Concert for the Damned" b ...
''
*2003 – ''
La serpenta canta
''La serpenta canta'' is a live performance album by avant-garde musician Diamanda Galás, released on 24 November 2003 by Mute Records.
Track listing
Personnel
*Diamanda Galás – vocals, piano, arrangement
;Production and additional ...
''
*2008 – ''
Guilty Guilty Guilty
''Guilty Guilty Guilty'' is a live performance album by avant-garde musician Diamanda Galás, released on 1 April 2008 by Mute Records.
Track listing
Personnel
*Diamanda Galás – vocals, arrangement, production, art direction
;Producti ...
''
*2017 – ''At Saint Thomas the Apostle Harlem''
Compilation albums
* 1988 - ''The Divine Punishment & Saint of the Pit''
* 1988 – ''
Masque of the Red Death
"The Masque of the Red Death" (originally published as "The Mask of the Red Death: A Fantasy") is a short story by American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1842. The story follows Prince Prospero's attempts to avoid a dangerous plague ...
(The Divine Punishment, Saint of the Pit & You Must Be Certain of the Devil)''
Singles
*1988 - ''Double-Barrel Prayer''
*1994 - ''Do You Take This Man?'' (with John Paul Jones)
*2009 - ''A Soul That's Been Abused''
*2009 - ''Gloomy Sunday''
*2009 - ''Pardon Me, I've Got Someone To Kill''
*2009 - ''You Don't Know What Love Is''
*2009 - ''O Death''
*2009 - ''I Put A Spell On You'' (with ''
Digitalism'')
*2010 - ''The Black Cat''
*2010 - ''Tengo que Subir al Puerto (Canto de las Montañas)''
*2010 - ''Fernand''
*2010 - ''All The Way''
*2010 - ''Orders From The Dead'' (with ''
Rotting Christ
Rotting Christ is a Greek black metal band formed in 1987. They are noted for being one of the first black metal bands within this region, as well as a premier act within the European underground metal scene. They are also responsible for creati ...
'')
*2011 - ''Άνοιξε Πέτρα (Anoixe Petra)''
*2011 - ''Birds Of Death''
*2011 - ''La Sierra de Armenia''
*2011 - ''Clash Of The Titans'' (with ''
Choronzon
Choronzon is a demon that originated in writing with the 16th-century occultists Edward Kelley and John Dee within the latter's occult system of Enochian magic. In the 20th century he became an important element within the mystical system of Th ...
'')
*2021 - ''Die Stunde Kommt (Live At The Murmrr Theater Brooklyn 2017)''
Long-form videos
*1986 – ''The Litanies of Satan'' (VHS)
*1993 – ''Judgement Day'' (VHS)
Promotional videos
* 1988 – ''Double-Barrel Prayer''
* 1994 – ''Do You Take This Man?''
Books
*1996 – ''The Shit of God''. London and New York: High Risk/Serpent's Tail, 1996.
*2017 – "Morphine & Others", featured in ''Outside: An Anthology'', edited by Doron Hamburger & Amir Naaman. Berlin: Ash Pure Press, 2017.
References
Further reading
*Anon.
The Woman who knows too much: A conversation with Diamanda Galás, avenging queen of the damned. ''Bluefat.com''. March 2008.
*Anon.
. ''Hellenism.net''. July 2009.
*Batchelder, Edward.
Diamanda Galás: The Politics of Disquiet. People & Ideas in Profile. ''New Music Box''. November 1, 2003. Interview and accompanying video.
*Fischer, Tobias.
Interview with Diamanda Galás. ''tokafi''. August 24, 2005.
*Golden, Barbara.
. 12.2 — Conversations at the 'Crack o’ Dawn'. ''eContact!''. April 2010. Montréal:
CEC.
*Zanchi, Luca. ''Lamentazione e Maledizione. Una Introduzione a Diamanda Galàs'' (Lamentation and Curse. An Introduction to Diamanda Galàs). Roma: Aracne, 2014.
External links
Diamanda Galás discography on Discogs*
Twitchfilm: Interview with Diamanda Galásrun-riot: InterviewLive footage of Diamanda Galás from the Claxon Festival in the Netherlands (Holland Festival 1984)– video starts at 41:16
{{DEFAULTSORT:Galas, Diamanda
Avant-garde singers
1955 births
Living people
American women composers
American blues singers
American performance artists
Arabic-language singers
Experimental composers
Women classical composers
American women in electronic music
HIV/AIDS activists
LGBT rights activists from the United States
Mute Records artists
American people of Egyptian descent
American people of Greek descent
Activists from California
Modern Greek-language singers
Musicians from San Diego
20th-century American composers
21st-century American composers
20th-century classical composers
21st-century classical composers
20th-century American women singers
20th-century American singers
21st-century American women singers
21st-century American singers
20th-century women composers
21st-century women composers