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

Gentle Gazzetta Readers,

It’s been a hectic and exciting couple of months since I wrote you last. I’ve been tying up loose ends on commissioned works, premiering new works, giving performances from coast to coast in the States, installing a solo exhibition in Berlin, giving presentations and performances in the woods of Vermont, all while frantically trying to sort out the details of an imminent year-long stay in Italy.

Yes, I’m moving to Rome!
It’s true: As a 2019/20 awardee of the Rome Prize, I will be living in Rome for eleven months starting in September of this year. I’ll be working on new solo work while brushing up my Italian, making friends with the other Rome Prize fellows, and exploring the beautiful city of Rome. But right now, I’m in a bit of a frenzy setting my affairs in order in preparation for the long time away.

I’m really looking forward to the chance to dedicate some solid time to creating new solo work. Those of you who have been following me have surely noticed that I’ve been performing a somewhat unchanging program repeatedly in my solo concerts for some time now. This is in spite of the fact that I’ve probably composed more music in the past year than I have in the several years preceding. But nearly all of this new work was commissioned by various chamber ensembles, soloists, and choreographers. I’ve composed a record number of works for other people to perform and hardly anything for my own solo repertoire. Starting now that’s going to change. For a while, I’ll be holding off on composing works for others until I at least get a running start on making some new solos.

Sea to Shining Sea
I've made that 5 to 6-hour journey back and forth a number of times in the past few months for a variety of East Coast events. I performed in Bang On A Can's benefit Gala at BAM, did a visiting artist residency at Dartmouth, served as guest faculty at the contemporary music camp "New Music on the Point" in Vermont, and attended the art star-studded 25th Anniversary festivities for the Herb Alpert Award in New York.

High Points
A major highlight of my recent adventures was my participation in San Francisco Symphony’s SOUNDBOX, in which I curated and performed in an exciting program called “Syntax”. The event featured members of SF Symphony performing a number of my works along with pieces by Tom Johnson, Samuel Barber (with the beautiful voice of Marnie Breckenridge), and Mark Applebaum (performed to perfection by Third Coast Percussion). The evening – conducted by the inimitable Chris Roundtree – featured a gorgeous visual design by Adam Larsen. The whole affair was a thrill and truly a milestone for me.

Another significant experience was being given a solo exhibition at the Berlin gallery Savvy Contemporary. I was honored to have five pieces shown throughout the main gallery, corridors, and library of Savvy’s intriguing space (a repurposed crematorium!) The exhibition included my mutli-channel sound and video works Sonic Gestures and Memory Palace, a stereo fixed media work Declaratives in the First Person, and two pieces from Parts of Speech. I spent an intensive week there editing, adapting and installing the work with the help of a skilled and dedicated team of installers and curators. I attended the opening, and then concluded my Berlin stay with a solo performance in the main gallery space.

Eighth Blackbird played the piece beautifully, and I joined them in playing the final movement to a hall filled with an attentive and receptive audience. All of these watershed moments occurred within the few short months since I last wrote you!

Still to come...
I still have a number of events slated for the brief time between now and when I depart for Italy. As you read this, I’ll be preparing to take the stage on the third floor at the Kitchen in New York for a special performance with voice, electronics, and three channels of video. And then it’s back the Bay Area to perform in Garden of Memory, the annual Solstice event at Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland, and to do some duo performances with Donald Swearingen. In August, I’m heading east again briefly to perform and have works performed in Bang on a Can’s LOUD Weekend at MASS MoCA, and in early September I'm part of the organizing committe for the 20th Annual San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. Read on for details...

Love,

PZ

Alpert Music Awardees past and present:
James Carter, Laetitia Sonami, Anne LeBaron, Myra Melford, John King, Eve Beglarian, Lukas Ligeti, George Lewis, Meshelle Ndegiocello, Vijay Iyer, Nicole Mitchell, Miya Masaoka, Steve Coleman, Pamela Z

PZ in front of the Alpert Award "step and repeat" wall.

PZ performing at Savvy Contemporary.

Detail of Parts of Speech installation in Savvy Library

Sonic Gestures at Savvy Contemporary

SF Symphony Members rehearsing PZ's string quartet for SoundBox

The SoundBox stage bathed in the Heiligenstadt Testament.

Jesse Marino's Rot Blau as performed at the LA Phii's Noon to Midnight

Audience performing David Lang's Crowd Out at Noon to Midnight Fest

Tony Arnold and Jan Willams perform Cage at New Music on the Point

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upcoming event details:

Elastic City PROMPTS Book Release Event
June 13, 2019, 6:30-9pm

Celebrate the release of "Elastic City: Prompts for Participatory Walks," Elastic City's new book on the participatory walk form. Pamela Z will lead one of her “prompts” from her 2011 SITE READING walk as part of the Prompts Book Release event at The Invisible Dog at 6:30pm in Brooklyn, NY USA.

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Elastic City: Prompts for Participatory Walks is a new book that includes instructions (aka prompts) from more than 35 artists' walks along with a section that features the insights and philosophy of EC Founder Todd Shalom, who spent 14 years presenting and refining walks.

The book features 48 prompts, walk ephemera and contributions from a eclectic roster of visual, performance and text-based artists, including: luciana achugar, Andrés Andreani, Anna Azrieli, Chiara Bernasconi, Juan Betancurth, Becca Blackwell, Michelle Boulé, Tania Bruguera & Mujeres en Movimiento, Isabella Bruno, Cristian Carracedo, Kate Colby, Jon Cotner, Jose De Diego, Karen Finley, Neil Freeman, Anthony Goicolea, Neil Goldberg, Miguel Gutierrez, Nisan Almog Haymian, Riley Hooker, Matthew Jensen, Nina Katchadourian & Andrew Zarou, Wayne Koestenbaum, Amichai Lau Lavie & Shawn Shafner, Mimi Lien, Erin Markey, Robert Mauksch, Daniel Neumann, The Office of Recuperative Strategies (featuring Christian Hawkey & Rachel Levitsky), Okwui Okpokwasili, Hayal Pozanti, Anne Percoco, Sarah Schulman, Todd Shalom, Niegel Smith, Leandro Tartaglia, Andrea Williams, Kristin Geneve Young, and Pamela Z.

RSVP for the launch HERE.

The Invisible Dog Arts Center
51 Bergen Street, Brooklyn, NY

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Pamela Z solo performance in ASSEMBLY
Saturday, June 15, 2019, 6:30pm

Pamela Z gives a solo peformance of works for voice, electronics, and multi-channel video as part of ASSEMBLY at The Kitchen at 6:30pm in New York, NY USA

Over three weekends in June, The Kitchen's building will contain three empty floors that will be stripped of their identity of gallery, theater, and office space; each floor will be activated sequentially through custom sound and video systems by musicians, dancers, performance artists and DJs, incorporating artists who have worked with The Kitchen over decades, as well as those new to the space. ASSEMBLY aims to promote thinking about access, collective thought, and recognizing how sound/music and the structure of certain spaces lend themselves to a nuanced and rich cultural exchange. By recasting the use of our building to more fluidly generate these ideas, The Kitchen can meditate on how non-profit institutions should represent, and be shaped by, their publics in the present day. Organized by Kevin Beasley, Lumi Tan, Tim Griffin and Nicole Kaack.

Participating artists include Suzi Analogue, King Britt presents Moksha Black, Richard Kennedy, HPrizm, Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, Lafawndah, Mhysa, Jason Moran, NAR, Angie Pittman, stud1nt, Logan Takahashi, David Thomson, Wetware, whoisskitzo, and Pamela Z.

Tickets: $10 General / $8 Members. Children under 18 free (reservation recommended)

The Kitchen
512 W 19th Street, New York, NY

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