Diamanda Galás

Diamanda Galás is a Greek-American avant-garde performance artist, vocalist and composer from San Diego, California. She works in avant-garde, dark wave, death industrial, experimental, neoclassical dark wave and piano blues, and is known for a confrontational stage presence, wailing vocal style and a four-octave range.

Early life and training

Born in 1955, Galás is raised in San Diego by Greek Orthodox parents. Her singing is discouraged, while her classical piano playing is supported. She later attends the University of California’s music and visual arts programme after a difficult youth.

Performance work and collaborators

Galás makes her performance debut in 1979 at the Festival d’Avignon in France, appearing as the lead in Vinko Globokar’s opera Un Jour Comme un Autre, a work concerned with the torture and death of a Turkish woman and sponsored by Amnesty International. She develops further solo performance pieces including Wild Women with Steak Knives and Tragouthia Apo to Aima Exon Fonos, drawing on the shriek-based traditions of German expressionist opera and using amplified voice, echoes and delays. She also works with composers including Phillip Glass, Terry Riley, John Zorn, Iannis Xenakis and Vinko Globokar.

Recorded work

Galás first draws wider attention with Plague Mass, a live recording made in 1991 at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York. The performance attacks the Catholic Church’s indifference to AIDS and uses biblical texts. It forms part of her trilogy of the same name, which responds to the effects of AIDS and is linked to her brother, who is part of that affected community and dies during the final production. During this period she has the words “We are all HIV+” tattooed on her knuckles.

In 1992 she releases The Singer, an album of blues interpretations in which she sings songs by Willie Dixon, Roy Acuff and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins while accompanying herself on piano. The record also includes traditional songs and a rare version of “Gloomy Sunday” with lyrics by Desmond Carter. Her blues and non-blues selections are sometimes described as “homicidal love songs”. She also focuses on the death penalty, and a programme titled Frenzy is dedicated to Aileen Wuornos and includes songs associated with Phil Ochs and Hank Williams Sr.

In 1994 she collaborates with John Paul Jones, the bass guitarist of Led Zeppelin, on The Sporting Life, a recording that keeps much of her vocal style while moving closer to rock music.

Other work

Galás contributes vocals to Francis Ford Coppola’s film Dracula and appears on its soundtrack. Her later song cycle interprets songs associated with Edith Piaf and Marlene Dietrich.

Reception

Her work is associated with post-modern performance art and with themes including political protest, AIDS, torture and capital punishment. Commentary on her work emphasises the use of Mediterranean keening, whispers, shrieks and moans as part of her performance language.