Pamela Z
is a San Francisco-based composer/performer and audio artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, and sampling technology. She is well known both regionally and nationally for her unique performances in which she layers her operatic voice with digital sound processors and a MIDI controller, called the BodySynth®, that allows her to access electronic samples through gestural movement. Pamela Z has performed in the Bay Area since 1984 and has toured extensively throughout the United States.
In 1996, she performed at Lincoln Center in New York as part of the Bang on a Can Festival and in a four city tour of Japan as part of the Interlink Festival. She has created a number of commissioned audio pieces for New American Radio, the most recent of which was supported by the San Francisco Art Commission. Pamela Z produces "Z Programs," an ongoing series of interdisciplinary events in which her own work has been featured along with that of other artists doing experimental work in various genres. In addition, she is a member of the performance ensemble The Qube Chix, performs regularly with New Music Theater (including their John Cage festivals), and has performed with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. Pamela Z is scheduled to create and perform a new work in collaboration with the California Ear Unit in L.A. for January of 1998.

Statement:
"With the dramatic changes that came about in my music due to the use of digital delays, my hands and my body were freed up for gesture and movement, and I became more focused on the performance aspect of my work. I came to see the sound I was making, and my physical behavior while making it, as an integrated whole ... performance itself was a discipline ..."
Pamela Z lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She produces Z Programs, an ongoing series of interdisciplinary events. She is a member of sensorChip, an electronic music ensemble, and The Qube Chix, an interdisciplinary performance ensemble. She performs and travels extensively.

the BodySynth™
The BodySynth?, created by Chris Van Raalte and Ed Severinghaus (Copyright 1994), is MIDI controller that transforms movement, gestures, and other muscle efforts into sounds. The performer attaches electrodes to the body over various muscles. The tiny electrical signals generated by muscle contractions are measured and analyzed by a microprocessor. A variety of processing algorithms are available through the keypad on the Processor Unit. These algorithms translate effort into MIDI commands thus causing the body to become a controller for an electronic sound module such as a synthesizer or a sampler. You can find out more about The BodySynth by visiting
http://www.synthzone.com/bsynth.html
Contact Ed Severinghaus for information on a current special on the BodySynth™
Ed Severinghaus
edscargot@yahoo.com
510-594-1952