Biography

Diamanda Galás

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Raised in San Diego, California, Galás was born to Greek Orthodox parents, who always encouraged her gift for piano. Galás studied a wide range of musical forms, as well as visual-art performance, and then moved to to Europe where she made her performance debut at the Festival d'Avignon in France in 1979, performing the lead in the opera, "Un Jour Comme Un Autre," by composer Vinko Globokar, based upon the Amnesty International documentation of the arrest and torture of a Turkish woman for alleged treason.

Releasing her first recorded work in 1982, Galás' numerous musical and theatrical works include the pivotal "Plague Mass" (1990), the 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, and the concerts/recordings of "Malediction and Prayer," (1998), "Judgement Day," "Concert for the Damned," and "The Masque of the Red Death" (1984 to 1988). Galás is working (as of 2005) on the composition and commissioning of the opera "Nekropolis."
- IMDb mini biography by: C. Augusto Valdés

Speaks Greek fluently and is learning French
In 1982, she released a dramatic (and quite terrifying) rendition of Charles Baudelaire's infamous poem "Les Litanies de Satan (The Litanies of Satan)" in the original French language. The recording included her performance work "Wild Women with Steak-Knives (The Homicidal Love Song For Solo Scream)".
Has a Turkish-Armenian father and an Armenian-Syrian mother.
In 1982 she makes her solo debut with the album Litanies of Satan whose B-side is the acclaimed "Wild Women With Steak Knives.".
Made her professional debut in Europe while doing post-graduate studies there in 1979.

[on Billie Holiday's version of Gloomy Sunday] When she first recorded it on the radio, there was a protest from the record company because it was too pessimistic and depressing, therefore they had her change the ending to make it more optimistic and hopeful and at that moment was born the first pop music. I don't do it that way of course...
I don't know why, but all my favorite writers are misogynist.

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