Diamanda Galás (New York, NY) "She plays the piano like driving rain slapping on concrete, and she sings like a demon going to war, a valkyrie scatting, a lizard queen seeking revenge for the dead... Galás is profound, rigorous, vocally unlimited, terrifying and utterly compelling. To hear her is to have your soul scoured clean."

Diamanda Galás is an internationally acclaimed vocalist, pianist, composer and poet. Raised in San Diego, California, she was born to Greek Orthodox parents who always encouraged her gift for piano. She studied a wide range of musical forms, as well as visual-art performance, and then moved to Europe where she made her performance debut at the Festival d'Avignon in France in 1979. Galás' numerous musical and theatrical works include the pivotal "Plague Mass" (1990), a haunting mass for People with Aids, "Vena Cava"(1992), the solo voice and electronic work concerning AIDS dementia and clinical depression, Schrei 27 (1996), which deals with torture in isolation, She is currently working on the composition and commissioning of the opera "Nekropolis."