The Space We Hold Episode IV: Pamela Z

The Space We Hold is a five-part documentary series featuring composers Saad Haddad, Jeffrey Mumford, inti-figgis vizueta, Pamela Z, and Billy Childs

Co-created by VC Artists Nathan Meltzer and Devin Moore, Opus Illuminate's newest project, The Space We Hold, is presented in partnership with the Alphadyne Foundation. 

The series includes both recorded performances and interviews to provide insight into the personal lives and compositional styles of each composer. The aim of the project is to humanize the music and facilitate a personal relationship between the audience and the composer. Topics range from early education and musical upbringing to the unique experiences of being a composer that is part of a traditionally underrepresented or mistreated community.

Episode 4 features composer Pamela Z, an award-winning composer/performer who is known for her work with voice, live electronics, sampled sound, and video.

Musicians in this episode: Kevin Zhu (violin), Nathan Meltzer (violin), Joshua Kail (viola), Sterling Elliott (cello), Ariel Horowitz (violin), Jennifer Ahn (violin), Natalie Loughran (viola), Khari Joyner (cello)

Pamela Z is a pioneer of live looping, and many of her solo works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, digital processing, and wireless MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound with physical gestures. She has been commissioned to compose scores for dance, theatre, film, and chamber ensembles including Kronos Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, the Bang on a Can All Stars, Julia Bullock with SF Symphony, and the LA Philharmonic New Music Group.

Her interdisciplinary performances have been presented at venues including The Kitchen (NY), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (SF), REDCAT (LA), and MCA (Chicago).

Pamela has toured extensively throughout the US, Europe, and Japan and performed in numerous festivals including Bang on a Can (NY), Interlink (Japan), Other Minds (San Francisco), La Biennale di Venezia (Italy), Dak’Art (Sénégal) and Pina Bausch Tanztheater Festival (Wuppertal).

She’s a recipient of numerous awards including the Rome Prize, Foundation for Contemporary Arts Dorothea Tanning Award, United States Artists, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, the Guggenheim, Doris Duke Artist Impact Award, Herb Alpert Award, an Ars Electronica honorable mention, and the American Academy of Arts and Letters Award.

Opus Illuminate is a performance organization dedicated to expanding the classical music industry by performing works by composers of historically underrepresented communities and heritages.

"By experiencing a whole new collection of works by composers of diverse demographics, we will be beautifying and enriching not only our culture as classical musicians, but our culture at large," Nathan Meltzer said. "We can change our society by choosing to allow the art form that we all love to finally represent all the people of a vast spectrum of cultures, heritages, and communities, who have dedicated their lives to the craft.”