Mills Music Now Presents Pamela Z

Last night Mills Music Now presented a solo program of Pamela Z performing nine of her compositions. This was the second in a monthly series of concerts presented by the Mills College Music Department and the Center for Contemporary Music under the general title Mills Music Now. (The first of these concerts was reported on this site.)

Z’s program involved compositions for voice, real-time electronic processing, sampled sounds, wireless gesture controllers, and interactive video. One piece was based entirely on a “found object.” “Rotary Telephone” involved Z evoking a diversity of imaginative sounds from a telephone that probably dated from the Fifties with its plastic cover removed. My guess is that the object was entirely alien to most of the audience, leaving recognition only to those of my generation that still remember the sounds it made.

I was particularly struck by the imaginative ways in which Z used video, going beyond much of what I had seen her perform in concert:

screen shot from the performance being discussed

It was clear that the lighting designed for each selection was as important as the music; and even the ceiling lamp (shown in the above image) appeared as if it had been designed for the occasion. In addition to imaginative contrasts of light and shadow, there were a variety of images reflecting past inventive acts, such as the projection of the work of Marcel Duchamp included in the above screen shot.

The only shortcoming was that the video itself did not identify the individual compositions by name. (Since all of the pieces unfolded in a continuous flow, this would have been handled best by subtitles.) Given how much there was to engage attention over the entire program, this is a minor cavil. The list of titles can be found on the Web page for the concert; and, of this writing, the video is available for replay on that Web page. The video itself includes about half an hour of “wait for it” slides about the Mills series, meaning that the performance is found only on the last 40 minutes. Visitors are encouraged to fish around for where the actual content begins. Once found, all of that content will make for a thoroughly absorbing experience of both audio and video.