Pamela Z is a San Francisco-based composer and performer who uses the voice, loops, samples, motion-triggered software and video to create her avant-garde-leaning music. Groups like the Kronos Quartet the Bang On A Can All Stars and Ethel String Quartet have commissioned chamber pieces from Z.
Some of Z’s music can bring to mind the soaring stark melodies of Hildegard von Bingen set against vocal patterns used as a rhythmic background. Elsewhere she might conjure the pointillistic textures of Stockhausen’s “Stimmung.” There’s a shamanic/monastic atmosphere to much of Z’s music. At other times her cut-and-paste pop-culture allusiveness might suggest connections to provocateurs like Negativland or the Residents. Z will perform “Correspondence, a work in progress,” a piece that explores modes of personal communication from the hand-written letter to the video chat.
Pamela Z performs at the Ring Family Performing Arts Center, at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Thursday, March 9, at 8 p.m. Free.
