‘…(T)here has always been a certain incommensurability between political activities that depend on mass mobilization and the idiosyncratic sensibility of the aesthete—even the public-spirited, politically active aesthete. For every argument that aesthetic concerns are a luxury in the face of political injustice, there is the rebuttal that aesthetic freedom is as necessary for the human spirit as any political right. “It is not the office of art to spotlight alternatives,” wrote Theodor Adorno, “but to resist by its form alone the course of the world, which permanently puts a pistol to men’s heads.” —NewMusicBox

Hymn & Fuguing Tune: “Ten contemporary composers and performers, whose work has intersected with their own deeply held political beliefs, talk about what has inspired their music, and what they hope to achieve with it.”

An extensive interview with Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah about his growing career as a songwriter.

Diamanda Galás in conversation with Edward Batchelder; an interview in ten parts, or a complete .pdf transcript of the interview.

EDWARD BATCHELDER: The first thing I’d like to ask you about is the current project that you’re working on. I know that you have two CDs coming out in November, and one of them directly relates to the issue of music and politics. Could you start by talking about it?

DIAMANDA GALÁS: Okay. The project is Defixiones, Will and Testament. Defixiones means “curse.” Defixios were lead tablets that were placed in certain places, let’s say, on the graves of the dead to either warn people that if they touch the grave, their ancestors would come to a very bad end, or to put curses on, let’s say, circus performers, enemies of any kind, and all sorts of things. A person who has done a lot of studying on this is John Gager at Princeton. The purpose that I use it for is to discuss the graves that were decimated and desecrated by the enemies of the Assyrians, the Greeks, and the Armenians living in Asia Minor, Pontus, and Thrace. These enemies were the Turks. I use this as a basic description of the overall intent of the work, which is that we will not die in peace.