PAMELA Z, the experimental Black composer singer and performance artist, renowned for her pioneering electronics. Born 1956 in Buffalo New York, she studied classical voice at the University of Boulder Colorado and scratched a living together for years as a singer-songwriter, busking and playing in clubs. And then she discovered electronic processing. It was 1982, in the early days of Moog synthesisers and live looping, centred around the lively electronic scene in San Francisco. . She bought a VW bus, drove there with $30 in her pocket, changed her surname to Pamela Z and never looked back.
Within ten years she was performing at the Whitney Museum and Lincoln Center, embarking on a composer residency in Japan and taking her solo shows and installations to festivals and galleries around the world. She has three solo albums - the latest has just been re-released - and awards that include a Guggenheim fellowship and the Rome Prize. In 1999, she co founded the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival and it’s not all electronic either: she’s been commissioned by the Kronos Quartet and Bang on a Can and Roomful of Teeth.
Still, it’s been a relentless struggle. “It’s like saying there’s no more racism. As a woman you’re always compared to the three famous women doing this as if we are all the same. A man would never get that. But that’s the plight of all women doing this work. You’re never what you would call secure"
MUSIC: Ethel Dreams of Temporal Disturbances
Presented by composer Joan Tower for International Women’s Month in March, written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
