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Diamanda Galas is a Greek-American performance artist, singer, pianist, and composer, born on August 29, 1955, in San Diego, USA. She has lived in New York City since 1989. Galas comes from Greek Anatolian parents who nurtured her musical talent from an early age. She studied both classical and jazz music, accompanying her father's gospel choir and later joining his New Orleans-style band. By the age of 14, she was performing as a piano soloist with the San Diego Symphony. In the 1970s, Galas was active in the improvisational music scene in San Diego and Los Angeles, collaborating with musicians such as Mark Dresser and Butch Morris. Her performance debut occurred at the Festival d’Avignon in 1979, where she sang the lead role in Vinko Globokar’s opera "Un jour comme un autre." While in France, she also performed works by Iannis Xenakis with l’Ensemble intercontemporain and Musique vivante. Galas gained international recognition with her quadrophonic performances of "Wild Women with Steak Knives" (1980) and "The Litanies of Satan" (1982). She later created the controversial "Plague Mass," a requiem for those who died and suffered from AIDS, which was performed at Saint John the Divine cathedral in New York City. Through this work, Galas criticized the Roman Catholic Church and society's indifference to the

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