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Biography
BLP refimprove|date=November 2011Infobox musical artist|name = Diamanda Galás|image = Diamanda Galás, photo by Kristofer Buckle.JPG|caption = Diamanda Galás, photographed by Kristofer Buckle|image_size =|landscape =|background = solo_singer|birth_name =|alias =|birth_date = birth date and age|1955|08|29cite web|url= http://www.allmusic.com/artist/diamanda-gals-q128937|title=Diamanda Galás | AllMusic|work= Allmusic |accessdate=8 September 2011|death_date =|instrument =|genre = Avant-garde music|Avant-garde , Experimental music|experimental , blues , No Wave |occupation = Vocalist , keyboardist , composer |years_active =|label = Mute Records |Associated_act =|website = http://www.diamandagalas.com/ www.DiamandaGalas.com http://www.diamandagalas.com.mx/ www.DiamandaGalas.com.mx|notable_instruments = Diamanda Galás (born August 29, 1955) is an United States|American avant-garde composer , vocalist , pianist , organist , performance artist and Painting|painter .
Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", with her three and a half octave vocal range.cite web|url= http://www.trouserpress.com/entry.php? a=diamanda_galas|title=Diamanda Galás|publisher=TrouserPress.com|accessdate=2011-06-30 Her works largely concentrate on the topics of AIDS , mental illness , wiktionary:despair|despair , injustice , wiktionary:condemnation|condemnation , and loss of dignity . She has worked with many avant-garde composers, including Iannis Xenakis , Vinko Globokar and John Zorn .
Biography
Diamanda Galás was born and raised in San Diego|San Diego, California , to Eastern Orthodox Church|Greek Orthodox parents. She studied a wide range of musical forms before moving to Europe. She made her 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 cite web|url= http://www.discogs.com/artist/Diamanda+Gal%C3%A1s|title=Diamanda Galás' Discography at Discogs|accessdate=2012-02-02, based upon Amnesty International 's documentation of the arrest and torture of a Turkish woman for alleged treason.Citation needed|date=May 2009 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.
Work
In 1988 Galás joined AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power|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 43 people arrested inside the cathedral. At the time it was the largest demonstration against the Catholic church in history.
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 cover version|covered Willie Dixon , Roy Acuff , and Screamin' Jay Hawkins , as well as Gloomy Sunday ", a song written by Hungary|Hungarian pianist and composer Rezso 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 bass guitar|bassist John Paul Jones (musician)|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 (singer)|Andy Bell .cite web| url = http://tinpan.fortunecity.com/jazz/511/ominterview.htm| title = Interview with Erasure| accessdate = 1997-07-08| publisher = OM Magazine, Russia
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 (short story)|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 (band)|Recoil , contributing her voice to the album Liquid (Recoil 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 Genocide|Armenian , Greek genocide|Greek , Assyrian genocide|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.* http://www.shabalin.it/aquarium/en/
Film work
Galás has often worked in the film industry. She was the voice of the dead in The Serpent and the Rainbow (film)|The Serpent and the Rainbow . A cover of the Schwartz-Dietz song " Dancing in the Dark (Howard Dietz and Arthur Schwartz song)|Dancing in the Dark " appears in Clive Barker's film Lord Of Illusions during the closing credits. "Le Treizičme Revient" and "Exeloume" appear on the soundtrack to Derek Jarman 's The Last of England (film)|The Last of England . She contributed vocals to Francis Ford Coppola 's 1992 film Dracula (1992 film)|Dracula as a group of female vampires, as well as John Milius 's 1982 film Conan the Barbarian (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 .
Discography
1982 - The Litanies of Satan
1984 - Diamanda Galás (album)|Diamanda Galás , re-released as Panoptikon
Batchelder, Edward. " http://www.newmusicbox.org/article.nmbx? id=2311 The Politics of Disquiet: Diamanda Galás in conversation with Edward Batchelder." New Music Box — "People & Ideas in Profile." November 1, 2003. Interview and accompanying video.
Bluefat.com (eds.). " http://www.bluefat.com/1002/Diamanda_Galas08.htm The Woman who knows too much: A conversation with Diamanda Galás, avenging queen of the damned." Interview from March 2008.
Fischer, Tobias. " http://www.tokafi.com/15questions/interviewdiamandagalas Interview with Diamanda Galás." tokafi, August 24, 2005.
Golden, Barbara. "Conversation with Diamanda Galás." http://cec.concordia.ca/econtact/12_2/interviews_golden.html eContact& #33; 12.2 — Interviews (2) (April 2010). Montréal: Canadian Electroacoustic Community|CEC .
Hellenism.net (eds.). http://www.hellenism.net/interview_diamanda_galas.html Interview with Diamanda Galás. July 2009.
Sound installation "Aquarium" http://www.shabalin.it/aquarium/en/. 12–19 June 2011.
Diamanda Galás Albums Persondata |NAME = Galás, Diamanda |ALTERNATIVE NAMES = |SHORT DESCRIPTION = Greek-American vocalist and musician |DATE OF BIRTH = 29 August 1955 |PLACE OF BIRTH = San Diego, California |DATE OF DEATH = |PLACE OF DEATH = DEFAULTSORT:Galas, Diamanda Category:Avant-garde singers Category:American activists Category:American female singers Category:American blues singers Category:American people of Greek descent Category:American performance artists Category:Dark cabaret musicians Category:Experimental composers Category:Women composers Category:20th-century composers Category:21st-century composers Category:Musicians from California Category:People from San Diego, California Category:Mute Records artists Category:Singers with a three octave vocal range Category:Living people Category:1955 births Category:LGBT rights activists from the United States
