Gentle Gazzetta Readers,

2026 is a quite the year for anniversaries – with SFEMF (San Francisco Electronic Music Festival) and me both having major birthdays – and the Summer is packed full of performances, celebratory events, and record releases.

Constantly Performing
I’m scheduled for three different (solo and collaborative) Bay Area performances this month at Roar Shack, SFMOMA, and Chapel of the Chimes. And, in July, I will be performing in a concert at a Rome Prize Fellows’ reunion and then returning stateside to mount Z Program 70 – featuring a delightful dozen of friends and collaborators on my birthday in West Oakland. And, in August, I’ll be in New York performing solo at the Time:Spans Festival and doing an improvised duo concert with bassist Linda Oh at the Stone. I’ll also be participating in a panel discussion along with Miya Masaoka at an event called “Dialogue and Sound” at the SF Public library to kick off the events celebrating San Francisco Electronic Music Festival’s 25th year.

New Releases Galore!
Within the space of a few months, two of my commissioned works – both for piano and tape – are being released by the pianists who commissioned them. Min Kwon just released her massive project of 76 new piano works (including my America America America America America) on a Delos multi-CD set and all the streaming platforms. And Nadia Shpachenko’s soccer-themed CD, Keys to the Beautiful Game (containing my Balòn) will be coming out in July on Reference Recordings. In addition, LOADBANG just recorded my Things Thing and have already released the video on YouTube. And Fuse Ensemble is in the process of recording and mixing their performance of my Ways of Looking.

Premieres, Collaborations, Commissions
Since I last wrote, I’ve been very busy with the creation and presentations of a lot of new work. In February I composed a multi-channel, spatialized sound work called Arbeitsklang which premiered in March in a four-week run of performances at Audium, San Francicso’s 176-speaker “theater of sound”.

The following month, I premiered my newly composed chamber work, From, commissioned by Ensemble for These Times. I then flew to Cincinnati, where CCM's Musica Nova gave a portrait concert featuring several of my chamber works,

Wobbly and PZ

Butoh dancers (Dana Iova-Koga & Mari Osani) in inkBoat's "Clouds..."

Dancer Alexa Oliva in concert with Neil Rolnick at West Oakland Sound Series

Jack playing at Hertz Hall

Still from an Arthur Gansen film screened at West Oakland Sound Series

Theresa Wong at SFMOMA with Calder Sculptures

ODC Dance with Volti

Meyer Sound "trophy wall"

Worn Ensemble performing Henze (with Steve Schick conducting)

after which I returned to San Francisco to participate in a three-evening run of inkBoat’s butoh/noh/experimental theater work directed by Shinichi Iova-Koga, in which I performed as narrator and as a member of the band (led by composer Dan Cantrell). And I worked with The Living Earth Show to create and perform the final installation of the season's events at The Roar Shack.

I’m now getting started on three new commissions – one for the choral ensemble Lorelei, one for the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and a piece for trumpet, voice, and electronics for Tom Dambly.

FUEL FOR MY PRACTICE
As usual, I made it a point to see a great many concerts and exhibitions in between all my own events and, as usual, these gave me plenty of impetus and inspiration, while also helping to keep my mind off the daily horrors of the news cycle. I attended so many events that I can’t even begin to list them all here, but some highlights were Jack Quartet at Cal Performances, Claire Chase at SF Performances, Theresa Wong solo and choreographers Galen Rogers and Lauren Simpson in the galleries of SFMOMA, Volti and ODC Dance performing a beautiful work by composer Joby Talbot and choreographer KT Nelson, Dennis Russell Davies and Maki Namekawa in a piano recital at Mills College, a remarkable program of the work of Hans Werner Henze by the Worn Chamber Ensemble, and too many West Oakland Sound Series concerts to count – including Wobbly with Cheryl Leonard, the wonderful Departure Duo, and ROVA Saxophone Quartet with the Gong Woman herself, Karen Stackpole. I also had the great pleasure of joining my friends from AUDIUM in a guided tour of the speaker factory at Meyer Sound in Berkeley.

ROVA Saxophone Quartet with Karen Stackpole at West Oakland Sound Series

Now I feel primed, if not fully prepared, to jump into this over-stuffed summer of composing music and giving performances. I hope to see you at some of them. Scroll down for details about all of it!

Love,

PZ

gazzetta | event highlights | news travels goings-on | event details | past gazzette | pamelaz.com

upcoming event details:

Pamela Z with The Living Earth Show at Roar Shack

Thursday and Friday, June 19, 2026, 6:45pm
ROAR SHACK LIVE!

An evening with composer/performer Pamela Z and experimental chamber ensemble The Living Earth Show.

This program is made possible by 836M.

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Following on the heels of last season's collaboration on The Qube Chix reunion, Pamela Z and The Living Earth Show create a new, concert-length production performed as a trio of Pamela Z (voice and electronics), Travis Andrews (guitars), and Andy Meyerson (percussion), the group explores song, improvisation, chamber compositions, and experimental performance.

Tickets

Roar Shack Live!
34 7th Street
San Francisco, CA
USA

Garden of Memory
annual Summer Solstice Event at Chapel of the Chimes

Saturday June 21, 2025
5-9 pm

Pamela Z gives solo voice and electronics performances as part of Garden of Memory at Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, CA

Garden of Memory features continuous simultaneous performances by Bay Area composers and musicians presenting a variety of acoustic and electronic music in a walk-through concert in different parts of the beautiful, Julia Morgan-designed building. The audience is free to move throughout the building during the performances. From 5pm to 9pm.

Chapel of the Chimes
4499 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland, CA, USA

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ATRIA LIVE at SFMOMA

Thursday, JUNE 25, 2026, 6:00pm
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Pamela Z will give a performance on voice and electronics in the Calder gallery in collaboration with poet Dan Waldman and dancer Suzanne Beahrs at San Francisco Museum of Modern Art SFMOMA at 6pm in San Francisco, CA

Experience an evening of immersive performance and poetry unfolding throughout Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10, inspired by D.S. Waldman’s debut poetry collection Atria.

Set in these galleries, Waldman’s poems meditate on specific artworks in explorations of grief, memory, disability, and love. The program, curated by the author, is structured into three site-specific movements that unite artists working across sound, poetry, ceramics, cello, dance, video, and performance. The collaborators will create experiences in dialogue with the art and architecture around them. Like Waldman’s poems, these performances will reveal the ways an encounter with a painting or sculpture can lodge itself in the mind and body, with meaning unfolding long after the galleries have been left.

Artists Performing:
Pamela Z, DS. Waldman, and Suzanne Beahrs
Theresa Wong, Ashwini Bhat, and Forrest Gander
Chris McKelway, Christine Imperial, Chase Niesner, and Cindy Juyoung Ok

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
701 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103

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Tuesday, July 7, 2026, 5pm
Spazio Supernova

The Society of Fellows of the American Academy in Rome is presenting a concert of Rome Prize alumnae composers and performing artists as part of the 2026 AAR Reunion. The program will include works by Pamela Z, Igor Santos, Miya Masaoka, and Jennifer Scappettone.

Spazio Supernova
Piazza Santa Maria in Trastevere, 1A
00 153 Roma

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Z PROGRAM 70

Monday, July 13 2026, 7:00pm
Dresher Ensemble Studio

Get TICKETS

Dresher Ensemble Studio
2201 Poplar Street, Oakland, CA 94607
USA

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Come celebrate Pamela Z’s birthday with an evening featuring performances by Pamela and several of her close friends, colleagues, and collaborators.

Sliding scale: 70 dimes – 70 dollars ($7.00 – $70.00) (no one turned away for lack of dimes) Z Program Seventy will take place on Monday July 13th, 2026, at the Dresher Ensemble Studio in West Oakland. This lively evening will feature performances and video by a delightful list of artists including Sarah Cahill, Paul Dresher, Thea Farhadian, Jeanne Finley + John Muse, John Leidecker, Amy X Neuburg, Suki O’Kane, Julie Queen, Sean Santomieri, Ian Winters, Theresa Wong, and The Qube Chix.

Join us afterwards for wine and cake!

Saturday, July 18, 2026 3-5:30pm
The Sculpture Studio @ Theater Artaud

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LORELIE ENSEMBLE WILD

August 1, 2026, 3pm
The Voxel

Lorelei Ensemble will premiere a work by Pamela Z on a program of newly commissioned pieces for treble voices as part of Wild! at The Voxel in Baltimore, MD

From July 28 – August 1, 2026, Lorelei Ensemble will collaborate with composers Angélica Negrón, Sarah Kirkland Snider, Tina Tallon, and Pamela Z on the creation of four new works for treble vocal ensemble, which together make up WILD.

Testing the limits of modern technology, layering soundtracks of spoken language and the natural world and merging poetry with music, WILD is about controlled borders and vast landscapes, freedom and constraint, clarity and distortion and the ways we use organic and artificial intelligence to resist and embrace wildness in ourselves and the world around us.

During the workshop performance on August 1, you will experience the creative process up close and have a chance to ask questions about how AI and other responsive technologies function in music creation, what it is like to interact with them as a performer, and their implications for live performance.

Tickets

The Voxel
9 West 25th Street, Baltimore, MD 21218
USA

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SFEMF DIALOGUE AND SOUND

Tuesday, August 11, 2026, 5:30pm
SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY

SFEMF @ 25: Past, Present, and Future Frequencies:  Dialogue and Sound

Celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival with a video presentation of archival material from previous editions of the festival, a panel discussion featuring SFEMF co-founders Miya Masaoka and Pamela Z along with several current SFEMF Steering Committee members, live performances, and upcoming festival lineup highlights.

SFEMF's celebration season will continue with a 25th anniversary gala at Gray Area on August 22, and the 25th Annual San Francisco Electronic Music Festival at The Lab September 24-26, 2026.

San Francisco Public Library
Koret Auditorium
100 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102
USA

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TIME:SPANS FESTIVAL

Tuesday, August 18, 2026, 7:30pm
DiMenna Center for Classical Music

Pamela Z will give a concert of solo works for voice and electronics as part of the TIME:SPANS Festival at Mary Flagler Cart Hall at 7:30pm in New York, NY

Tickets

TIME:SPANS FESTIVAL
The DiMenna Center
450 W 37th Street
New York, NY 10018
USA

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IMPROVISED DUO WITH LINDA OH

Thursday, August 20, 2026, 8:30pm
The Stone

Tickets

The Stone
The New School
Glass Box Theatre
55 West 13th Street
New York, NY 10018
USA

Pamela Z will perform a set of improvisations in collaboration with Linda May Han Oh as part of The Stone Residencies at The Stone at 8:30pm in New York, NY

For her residency, Linda Oh has curated a series of improvising duos and a quartet August 19-22, 2026 . Pamela Z will be her guest on the evening of Thursday August 20th, and together they will improvise a set of music for contrabass + voice and electronics.

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