Diamanda Galás
Personality unique in the international avant-garde musical scene, Greek-American composer, vocalist, pianist and artist Diamanda Galás is known for her performances and the originality of her work as well as for her commitment in giving voice to the great suffering of our time. Aids, genocide, oppression, torture and isolation are the main themes of her compositions. Capable of an impressive vocal range, she uses her own voice as an instrument with which she reaches extraordinary expressiveness.
During a thirty year career, Diamanda Galás has collaborated with artists, filmmakers and many musicians, including Iannis Xenakis, Vinko Globokar, John Zorn and former Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, with whom she made the visionary rock album, The Sporting Life (1994).
Vena Cava (1993), exploring Aids dementia and clinical depression, is an ideal extension of the legendary and controversial Plague Mass, a requiem for those dead and dying of AIDS, recorded live in the autumn of 1991 in the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York and by many considered her masterpiece.
(Diamanda Galás. Photos by Kristofer Buckle)