Pamela Z

Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist working primarily with voice, live electronics, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live looping, she processes her voice to create complex sonic layers. Her solo works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and wireless MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. She has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theater, film, and chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Roomful of Teeth, the Living Earth Show, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Julia Bullock with SF Symphony, and the LA Philharmonic New Music Group. Her interdisciplinary performances have been presented at venues including The Kitchen, New York; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; REDCAT, Los Angeles; and MCA, Chicago, and her installations have been presented at such exhibition spaces as MoMA, New York; the Whitney Museum, New York; Savvy Contemporary, Berlin, Germany; and the Krannert Art Museum, Champaign, IL. Pamela Z has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan. She has performed in numerous festivals including Bang on a Can, New York; Interlink, Japan; Other Minds, San Francisco; La Biennale di Venezia, Italy; Dak’Art, Sénégal; and Pina Bausch Tanztheater Festival, Wuppertal, Germany. She’s a recipient of numerous awards including the Rome Prize, Berlin Prize, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, MIT McDermott Award, United States Artists, Robert Rauschenberg Award, the Guggenheim Fellowship, Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, Herb Alpert Award, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. She holds a music degree from the University of Colorado, Boulder.