Pamela Z

Pamela Z
Pamela Z (c. 2003)
Background information
Born	1956 (1956) Buffalo, New York
Genres	Avant-garde, contemporary classical, experimental, electroacoustic
Occupation(s)	Composer, performer
Instrument(s)	Voice, electronics
Labels	Starkland, Innova, Bridge
Website	pamelaz.com

Pamela Z (born 1956) is an American composer, performer, and media artist best known for her solo works for voice with electronic processing. In performance, she combines various vocal sounds including operatic bel canto, experimental extended techniques and spoken word, with samples and sounds generated by manipulating found objects.^[1] Z's musical aesthetic is one of sonic accretion, and she typically processes her voice in real time through the software program Max on a MacBook Pro as a means of layering, looping, and altering her live vocal sound.^[2] Her performance work often includes video projections and special controllers with sensors that allow her to use physical gestures to manipulate the sound and projected media.^[3]

Z's solo albums are Echolocation (1987), and A Delay is Better (2004), and A Secret Code (2021). Her fixed-media sound works for radio and new media installations for art galleries have manifested in solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA, New York), the Krannert Art Museum (Champaign, Illinois), Savvy Contemporary (Berlin), Trondheim Elektroniske Kunstsenter (Trondheim, Norway), the Fine Arts Center Galleries at Bowling Green State University, and the Chico University Art Gallery (Chico, California), and in group exhibitions in the Dakar Biennale, Sénégal, the Whitney Museum of American Art, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Erzbischöfliches Diözesanmuseum, Cologne, and the McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, North Carolina.

In addition to being a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Artist in Residence, Z has received a United States Artists fellowship, the American Academy of Arts and Letters Walter Hinrichsen Award, the Rome Prize, a Guggenheim Fellowship, the MIT McDermott Award in the Arts, the Doris Duke Performing Artist Award in theater, the CalArts Alpert Award in the Arts, the Creative Capital Fund, the ASCAP Music Award (for 17 years), the MAP Fund (twice), and an NEA, and Japan/US Friendship Commission Fellowship. Her work and performances have been reviewed in the New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, East Bay Express, the Wire, and the Washington Post, among other places.