Leila Bela
Encyclopedia
Leila Bela (born in Tehran, Iran) is an Iran
ian-born American
avant-garde
musician
, writer
, photographer, actress, multi-instrumentalist
, playwright
and record producer
from Austin, Texas
.
, Iran
to a family of Persian
aristocrats. In her teens, she began writing freelance
articles about underground music for various local papers. Her first major job was an interview with Trent Reznor
of Nine Inch Nails
, she had been told by the paper to just cover the show but upon seeing her Trent Reznor introduced himself and offered her an interview and allowed her to use his recorder to record it and she accepted, he later invited her to the opening of the very first Lollapalooza
as his guest and reporter. She started her first magazine in 1998 while attending college at The University of Houston
on a full scholarship as honor student, where she majored in theatre and physics, with a minor in Literature and independent studies in photography and playwriting. She was one of five students chosen out of thousands of people who had submitted plays from her theatre school to study with Edward Albee
, an award-winning playwright known for his dark themes. Her Shakespeare audition in her second year at university also landed her in a class taught by master Shakesperean director Sir Peter Hall who chose four people to teach during one semester in Houston. She performed such roles as Natalia in Three Sisters
in 2001, Lady Nijo in Top Girls
in 2002, Regan in King Lear
, Pheobe in As You Like It
, and Antigone in Antigone
.
Despite her teachers urging her to follow an acting career, she decided to start writing a concept album of experimental music after school and soon left the theatre world for music with a theatrical twist. After releasing her first album, which she had recorded at home on a small recorder, she started playing live shows. She joined the supergroup
Pigface
briefly in 2004 after an invite from bandleader Martin Atkins
to play drums with his band after he saw her performance of her music as an opening act for his show.
Bela agreed to play a few shows with them then left the band to pursue her own musical projects.
In 2002, Bela launched Ellahy Amen Records
, a label based in Paris, France
and Austin, Texas
for avant-garde musicians.
According to her website, she got the idea to
start her own label after getting offers from other labels that she wasn't satisfied with, not wanting to be on a male run label and according to an interview with Bela on Persian radio; after Mike Patton
sent her an email urging her to pick the label that was the best permanent home for her album and not just a quick fix.
Artists signed to her label have included Bela, eight-year-old singer-songwriter, Maya Bond
and Lexion Blacklord (a musician from Switzerland
). She is also the creator of a custom-made instrument
called a Beltar, which has sympathetic string
s and can play either noise or melody. The Beltar can be used both electrically or acoustically. Bela designed it to look like a weapon based on the theory Trey Spruance
related to her of how "instruments
are the weapons of angels". She is a student of Unity Church
teachings and has studied many spiritual paths, she is also very active in the creative realm of Quantum Physics.In 2004, she was invited to play SXSW's music festival to promote her album.
Bela collaborated with Eric Tessmer in 2010 on a Persian folk song called "To Beya" Bela wrote the rearrangement of the song and directed the video that is now being shown on a Persian Film Festival site.
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
ian-born American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
avant-garde
Avant-garde
Avant-garde means "advance guard" or "vanguard". The adjective form is used in English to refer to people or works that are experimental or innovative, particularly with respect to art, culture, and politics....
musician
Musician
A musician is an artist who plays a musical instrument. It may or may not be the person's profession. Musicians can be classified by their roles in performing music and writing music.Also....* A person who makes music a profession....
, writer
Writer
A writer is a person who produces literature, such as novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, poetry, or other literary art. Skilled writers are able to use language to portray ideas and images....
, photographer, actress, multi-instrumentalist
Multi-instrumentalist
A multi-instrumentalist is a musician who plays a number of different instruments.The Bachelor of Music degree usually requires a second instrument to be learned , but people who double on another instrument are not usually seen as multi-instrumentalists.-Classical music:Music written for Symphony...
, playwright
Playwright
A playwright, also called a dramatist, is a person who writes plays.The term is not a variant spelling of "playwrite", but something quite distinct: the word wright is an archaic English term for a craftsman or builder...
and record producer
Record producer
A record producer is an individual working within the music industry, whose job is to oversee and manage the recording of an artist's music...
from Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
.
Biography
Bela was born in TehranTehran
Tehran , sometimes spelled Teheran, is the capital of Iran and Tehran Province. With an estimated population of 8,429,807; it is also Iran's largest urban area and city, one of the largest cities in Western Asia, and is the world's 19th largest city.In the 20th century, Tehran was subject to...
, Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
to a family of Persian
Persian people
The Persian people are part of the Iranian peoples who speak the modern Persian language and closely akin Iranian dialects and languages. The origin of the ethnic Iranian/Persian peoples are traced to the Ancient Iranian peoples, who were part of the ancient Indo-Iranians and themselves part of...
aristocrats. In her teens, she began writing freelance
Freelancer
A freelancer, freelance worker, or freelance is somebody who is self-employed and is not committed to a particular employer long term. These workers are often represented by a company or an agency that resells their labor and that of others to its clients with or without project management and...
articles about underground music for various local papers. Her first major job was an interview with Trent Reznor
Trent Reznor
Michael Trent Reznor is an American multi-instrumentalist, composer, record producer, and leader of industrial rock band Nine Inch Nails. Reznor is also a member of How to Destroy Angels alongside his wife, Mariqueen Maandig, and Atticus Ross. He was previously associated with bands Option 30,...
of Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails
Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
, she had been told by the paper to just cover the show but upon seeing her Trent Reznor introduced himself and offered her an interview and allowed her to use his recorder to record it and she accepted, he later invited her to the opening of the very first Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza
Lollapalooza is an annual music festival featuring popular alternative rock, heavy metal, punk rock and hip hop bands, dance and comedy performances, and craft booths. It has also provided a platform for non-profit and political groups. The music festival hosts more than 160,000 people over a...
as his guest and reporter. She started her first magazine in 1998 while attending college at The University of Houston
University of Houston
The University of Houston is a state research university, and is the flagship institution of the University of Houston System. Founded in 1927, it is Texas's third-largest university with nearly 40,000 students. Its campus spans 667 acres in southeast Houston, and was known as University of...
on a full scholarship as honor student, where she majored in theatre and physics, with a minor in Literature and independent studies in photography and playwriting. She was one of five students chosen out of thousands of people who had submitted plays from her theatre school to study with Edward Albee
Edward Albee
Edward Franklin Albee III is an American playwright who is best known for The Zoo Story , The Sandbox , Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , and a rewrite of the screenplay for the unsuccessful musical version of Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's . His works are considered well-crafted, often...
, an award-winning playwright known for his dark themes. Her Shakespeare audition in her second year at university also landed her in a class taught by master Shakesperean director Sir Peter Hall who chose four people to teach during one semester in Houston. She performed such roles as Natalia in Three Sisters
Three Sisters (play)
Three Sisters is a play by Russian author and playwright Anton Chekhov, perhaps partially inspired by the situation of the three Brontë sisters, but most probably by the three Zimmermann sisters in Perm...
in 2001, Lady Nijo in Top Girls
Top Girls
Top Girls is a 1982 play by Caryl Churchill. It is about a woman named Marlene, a career-driven woman who is employed at the 'Top Girls' employment agency. The play examines issues of gender discrimination present in the Thatcherite society that it is set in...
in 2002, Regan in King Lear
King Lear
King Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
, Pheobe in As You Like It
As You Like It
As You Like It is a pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare believed to have been written in 1599 or early 1600 and first published in the folio of 1623. The play's first performance is uncertain, though a performance at Wilton House in 1603 has been suggested as a possibility...
, and Antigone in Antigone
Antigone
In Greek mythology, Antigone is the daughter of Oedipus and Jocasta, Oedipus' mother. The name may be taken to mean "unbending", coming from "anti-" and "-gon / -gony" , but has also been suggested to mean "opposed to motherhood", "in place of a mother", or "anti-generative", based from the root...
.
Despite her teachers urging her to follow an acting career, she decided to start writing a concept album of experimental music after school and soon left the theatre world for music with a theatrical twist. After releasing her first album, which she had recorded at home on a small recorder, she started playing live shows. She joined the supergroup
Supergroup (music)
In the late 1960s, the term supergroup was coined to describe "a rock music group whose performers are already famous from having performed individually or in other groups"....
Pigface
Pigface
Pigface is an industrial rock supergroup formed in 1990 by Martin Atkins and William Rieflin.-History:Pigface was formed from Ministry's The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste tour, which produced the In Case You Didn't Feel Like Showing Up live album and video. For the tour, Al Jourgensen brought...
briefly in 2004 after an invite from bandleader Martin Atkins
Martin Atkins
Martin Clive Atkins is an English drummer and session musician, best known for his work in post-punk and industrial groups including Public Image Ltd., Ministry, Pigface, and Killing Joke...
to play drums with his band after he saw her performance of her music as an opening act for his show.
Bela agreed to play a few shows with them then left the band to pursue her own musical projects.
In 2002, Bela launched Ellahy Amen Records
Ellahy Amen Records
Ellahy Amen Records is an American and French independent avant-garde record label, launched in 2002 by former Pigface member and experimental/avant-garde musician Leila Bela. The record label is based both in Paris, France and Austin, Texas, USA...
, a label based in Paris, France
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
for avant-garde musicians.
According to her website, she got the idea to
start her own label after getting offers from other labels that she wasn't satisfied with, not wanting to be on a male run label and according to an interview with Bela on Persian radio; after Mike Patton
Mike Patton
Michael Allan "Mike" Patton is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, producer, and actor, best known as the lead singer of the metal/experimental rock band Faith No More. He has also sung for Mr...
sent her an email urging her to pick the label that was the best permanent home for her album and not just a quick fix.
Artists signed to her label have included Bela, eight-year-old singer-songwriter, Maya Bond
Maya Bond
Maya Bond is a Japanese-born American indie and avant-garde music singer-songwriter and drummer from Austin, Texas. She is the daughter of musician and composer T.W...
and Lexion Blacklord (a musician from Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
). She is also the creator of a custom-made instrument
Custom-made instrument
An experimental musical instrument is a musical instrument that modifies or extends an existing instrument or class of instruments, or defines or creates a new class of instrument. Some are created through simple modifications, such as cracked drum cymbals or metal objects inserted between piano...
called a Beltar, which has sympathetic string
Sympathetic string
Sympathetic strings or resonance strings are auxiliary strings found on many Indian musical instruments, as well as some Western Baroque instruments and a variety of folk instruments...
s and can play either noise or melody. The Beltar can be used both electrically or acoustically. Bela designed it to look like a weapon based on the theory Trey Spruance
Trey Spruance
Preston Lea Spruance III or "Trey Spruance" is an American composer, producer, and musician, perhaps best known as the leader of the multi-genre outfit Secret Chiefs 3 and for his work as guitarist and keyboardist with Mr. Bungle...
related to her of how "instruments
are the weapons of angels". She is a student of Unity Church
Unity Church
Unity, known informally as Unity Church, is a religious movement within the wider New Thought movement and is best known to many through its Daily Word devotional publication...
teachings and has studied many spiritual paths, she is also very active in the creative realm of Quantum Physics.In 2004, she was invited to play SXSW's music festival to promote her album.
Bela collaborated with Eric Tessmer in 2010 on a Persian folk song called "To Beya" Bela wrote the rearrangement of the song and directed the video that is now being shown on a Persian Film Festival site.
Discography
| Year | Album |
|---|---|
| 2003 | Angra Manyu Angra Manyu Angra Manyu is the debut concept album from avant-garde musician Leila Bela. The album is a completion of different sounds and noises Bela recorded in her apartment with a recorder. The album consists of 65 tracks.- About the album :... |