by Luca Testoni

Three concerts in Italy this September for a singer who revolutionized the very concept of vocal performance in 20th-century popular music.

A vocal art marked by the most uncompromising avant-garde, a sound that, when it first emerged in the late 1970s, evoked what critics of the era described as a cross between Greek tragedy, expressionist theater, and a psychoanalytic session.

The San Diego-born artist and performer of Greek heritage will take the stage on September 23 at the Auditorium Santa Chiara in Trento, September 26 at the Auditorium Paganini in Parma, and September 30 at the Teatro La Fenice in Senigallia (Ancona).

Recently, Galás, a mezzo-soprano as versatile as she is unconventional, reissued the remastered version of her 1988 album “You Must Be Certain of the Devil” on her own label, Intravenal Sound Operations. At the time of its original release, the album was described as a fierce and sorrowful “j’accuse” against the witch hunt targeting AIDS patients. Suspended between rock, electronics, spirituals, folk, and anarchic vocalizations, the album, entirely written and composed by Galás, evoked a deliberately dark, oppressive, and almost primitive atmosphere, spanning from ancient Greece to the superstitions and heresies of the Middle Ages. For the record, it is considered her most accessible work.

Also recently released on her personal label is “De-formation: Second Piano Variations,” a live recording of her reworked piano score “Das Fieberspital” (whose distressing and prophetic verses were written by German poet Georg Heym in the 1910s). The piece was recorded during an intimate, candlelight performance in the underground auditorium of the Pinault Gallery in Paris in the spring of 2025.

Info & Tickets http://ponderosa.it

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