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

Upcoming:

April 8, 2018: Chicago, IL
Resonant Bodies Festival
Constellation

April 11 & 14, 2018: San Francisco, CA
Other Minds Festival
ODC Theater

April 19, 2018: Los Angeles, CA
Now Hear Chamber Ensemble
plays Pamela Z
Automata

May 18, 2018: Boston, MA
New Music Gathering
Boston Conservatory at Berklee

May 22, 2018: San Francisco, CA
San Francisco Girls Chorus
premiering a new work by Pamela Z
Herbst Theater

June 4, 2018: Blacksburg, VA
NIME 2018 (New Interfaces
for Musical Expression)
Moss Arts Center, Virginia Tech

June 15-16, 2018: San Francisco, CA
Sara Shelton Mann's Echo (in progress)
Joe Goode Annex

July 22, 2018: Detroit, MI
Solo Works for Voice & Electronics
Red Bull House of Art

Gentle Gazzetta Readers,

Hello! Happy Spring! Finally, right? Like the spring, the Gazzetta has been missing in action for some time. In spite of its supposed quarterliness, it’s been nigh six full months since the last issue! Did you miss me?

Oh, so much has come to pass since then. So much travel, so much composing, so much performing, art-seeing, and hearing. And oh so many plans for new things to come! In the very near future, those plans include a quick jaunt to Chicago (where I’ll likely already be by the time you read this) for a performance at Constellation in the Resonant Bodies Festival this weekend, and then a quick return to San Francisco just in time for the Other Minds Festival this coming week at ODC Theater! There I’ll be giving a performance of solo works including the premiere of a new piece, and also vocalizing as part of the Other Minds Ensemble – performing historic speech music by the composer Ernst Toch. Tons of other fun things continue to unfold beyond that, and you can read about many of them in the events highlights above or the events details below. Meanwhile, let me catch you up on where I’ve been all this time...

Venezia!
After having my work, And the Movement of the Tongue, performed by a chamber orchestra in Los Angeles, and then heading east for an engagement in Williamsburg VA, I traveled to Europe in early November, for the sole purpose of attending the 2017 Venice Biennale. For the first time in all my years going, I traveled with companions – my sister and a dear friend. It was a seriously focused art-seeing expedition, and we remained in Venezia for nearly two weeks making thorough and repeated visits to all the pavilions on both of the main Biennale sites (Giardini and Arsenale) as well as many of the off-site pavilions and participating galleries. I had a wonderful and completely engaged time and felt, quite frankly, stuffed by the end. Some unexpected stand-outs included an enormous Damien Hirst show displaying artifacts and “mockumentation” from the excavation of a fictional shipwreck. The pieces were both ridiculous and stunning. Also, a sprawling exhibit called Glasstress at Palazzo Franchetti showcased works by major artists like Ai Weiwei, who collaborated with Murano glassmakers to create monumental and very uncharacteristic works in glass.

Striped Calendar
When I returned stateside, I presented a ROOM series event called Tongue Teeth Lips, which was a total blast, with an all-star line-up of Bay Area avant singers. Then I flew east for a gala event at Cave Studio, home of the New York intermedia butoh company LEIMAY, honoring Meredith Monk. There was a multi-course dinner served up in slow motion by members of the company, and performances by Missy Mazzoli, Meredith herself, and yours truly.

In the new year, as I scrambled to finish a commissioned choral work for the San Francisco Girls Chorus, I entered into a crazy pattern of travel. My calendar from the end of January through basically now, was dressed in horizontal stripes (and, yes, they did make it look fat.) For some reason my schedule was filled, for three months, with trips to every imaginable educational institution. Every week I alternated being home and then away again for visiting artist residencies at music schools and art departments – Rhodes College, Spelman College, University of Colorado at Boulder, Ohio State University, SUNY Oneonta, Brandeis Univeristy, and Haverford College – giving concerts at each one as well as talks, lecture-demos, and master classes. I criss-crossed the country so many times that I never sorted my jetlag, never fully unpacked, and could barely keep straigtht where I was exactly. And, between two of my east coast engagements, I flew on the smallest commercial flight I'd ever experienced – a 9-seater from Albany to Boston.

Exhausting as all those residencies were, I really enjoyed meeting and working with so many students, sharing my work with them, and hearing their work. But I won’t lie: I’m relieved to be done with those calendar stripes for the moment.

Somewhere in between all of that, I had the delightful opportunity to play with the Bang on a Can All Stars at Merkin Hall in New York. In celebration of 20 years of their People’s Commissioning Fund, they reprised my 1998 work, The Schmetterling. It was a joy to perform with them again.

Things to see and hear
I also saw many great concerts and art exhibitions – both at home, and on the road. In San Francisco I saw the gorgeous “Soundtracks” exhibition, the Rauschenberg retrospective and Louise Bourgeois’ Spiders at SFMOMA. I saw Ian Winters' brilliant time-lapse video installation at Minnesota Street Project, and I attended all the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players’ concerts during Steve Schick’s final season as director. In Philly I made a pilgrimage to PMA to visit Duchamps' Large Glass, in Columbus I had another chance to see William Kentridge’s The Refusal of Time at the Wexner, and I saw Meredith Monk’s new masterpiece Cellular Songs at BAM in New York.

And, just the other night, I saw Jaap Blonk in a tiny house concert in Berkeley, giving a wildly forceful and frenetic text sound performance that was more than an amuse bouche – heralding his coming appearances at next week’s bountiful Other Minds Festival. I’ll be sharing an evening with Jaap on the closing night of the festival (Saturday, April 14th) and I’m truly excited about the packed week of events celebrating speech music in all its facets. Scroll forward, dear Gazzetta-readers, to glean more deets about the languagy goodness that is to come...

Love,

PZ

The Tongue Teeth Lips chorus at the ROOM Series

PZ performing at LEIMAY's Cave Studio

KCO performing And the Movement of the Tongue at Disney Hall

Alex Hai, our dapper Gondolier

PZ on a Venetian bridge

Ai Weiwei's glass Twitter Bird

PZ with foot of multi-story high Hirst figure.

LEIMAY dancers suspended at Cave

Meredith Monk, Pamela Z, and Missy Mazzoli

Richard Mix singing Scelsi

The Bang on a Can All Stars at Merkin Hall

Ian Winters installation at Minnesota Street Project

Steve Schick performing Kurt Schwitters

Jaap performing Kurt Schwitters

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

upcoming event details:

Pamela Z at Resonant Bodies Festival
Sunday, April 8, 2018, 7:30pm