Pamela Z (born 1956)
Pamela Z was born Pamela Ruth Brooks in Buffalo and raised near Denver. She studied voice and received a bachelor’s degree in music from the University of Colorado. She was a singer/songwriter in her earlier years before becoming interested in electronic manipulation of sound, and then moving to San Francisco.
On her website, Pamela Z describes herself and her music:
Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist working with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video. A pioneer of live digital looping techniques, she processes her voice in real time to create dense, complex sonic layers. Her solo works combine experimental extended vocal techniques, operatic bel canto, found objects, text, and sampled concrète sounds. She uses MAX MSP and Isadora software on a MacBook Pro along with custom MIDI controllers that allow her to manipulate sound and image with physical gestures.
This 2017 video is a little sampler of her solo work:
This is a 2012 composition And the Movement of the Tongue, which features tapes of people talking about and demonstrating their accents.
A fuller description by Pamela Z appears in the description of the video. It was originally composed for the Kronos Quartet and then expanded to string orchestra for the L.A.-based Kaleidoscope Chamber Orchestra.
Other videos can be found on her website. Beginning at about 50:20 in this video are two very different works that she performs with the Del Sol Quartet: