The Artist: Anna Pangalou

About Anna Pangalou
Born and raised in Athens, Anna Pangalou is a vocal soloist and sound artist whose practice moves fluidly between the traditions of classical singing and the experimental edge of contemporary sound. Trained in Cannes, Vienna, Rome, and Athens, she has been recognized with awards and scholarships from the Alexandros Onassis Foundation, the Fulbright Foundation, and the International Dimitri Mitropoulos Singing Competition, where she participated in the Opera of the World project for the Cultural Olympiad 2004.

 

Pangalou has performed widely as a soloist across Europe, the Middle East, and the United States, with a repertoire spanning opera, Lied, oratorio, new music theatre, and contemporary music. Specializing in avant-garde composition, she is a long-standing collaborator with the Onassis Cultural Center’s “Open Days” program, presenting seminal works of the contemporary voice repertoire in performances known for their theatrical intensity. Several composers have written works specifically for her voice.

 

Over the past decade, her focus has turned toward experimental uses of the voice, including extended techniques, text and graphic scores, and the abstraction of meaning in vocal performance. She frequently collaborates across disciplines—dance, theatre, and the visual arts—pursuing hybrid forms that push the boundaries of performance. Since 2010, she has worked with the Benaki Museum in Athens, conceiving and performing events that intersect with the museum’s exhibitions.

 

In 2016, as a Fulbright Artist, Pangalou was invited to CalArts as an Artist in Residence, where she both performed and introduced her teaching method “Silent Singing” to the voice department. A year later, she participated in Documenta 14 in Athens, premiering Alvin Lucier’s So You (Hermes, Orpheus, Eurydice) in June 2017. Today, her work continues to explore the breath and voice as sculptural material, shaping sonic experiences that dissolve boundaries between music, space, and the body.