Arias from "FRANKENSTEIN"

arias from frankenstein

"You've Gone Away Again" — Elizabeth’s aria

Instrumentation: Mezzo-soprano and Piano

Libretto by: Gregg Kallor

Duration: ~3 minutes

Elizabeth writes a letter to Victor, who has mysteriously disappeared back into his laboratory following William’s death. She begins with gentle platitudes, but grows increasingly frustrated at not being able to fully express her despair to him. After voicing her true feelings in an impassioned outburst (“You’ve gone away again”), Elizabeth writes the forcibly calm letter that she will actually send to Victor.

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"I Now See Myself Before Me" — The Creature’s aria

Instrumentation: Baritone and Piano

Libretto by: Gregg Kallor

Duration: ~4 minutes

Victor Frankenstein has nearly completed building a companion for the Creature. The Creature, on the cusp of his dream coming true, sings to his unconscious beloved (“I now see myself before me”).

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"The World Was a Secret" — Victor’s aria

Instrumentation: Tenor and Piano

Libretto by: Gregg Kallor

Duration: ~3 minutes

Victor has nearly completed building a companion for the Creature, and he contemplates the consequences of his task (“The world was a secret”). Victor is torn between his obligation to provide some measure of happiness for the Creature and his fear of the increased destruction that the pair of creatures might jointly inflict on humanity.

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Premiere: October 13-15 (Phoenix) and 21-22 (Tucson), 2023 at Arizona Opera.

Edward Parks, The Creature (baritone); Terrence Chin-Loy, Victor Frankenstein (tenor); Katie Beck, Elizabeth Lavenza (mezzo-soprano)

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Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Edward Parks, baritone; Jason Wirth, piano; Nicole Paiement, conductor
recorded at the workshop at Opera America in New York City in 2021

Sara Cooper

ONE CHILD

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Lyrics by: Sara Cooper

Duration: 4 minutes

Composed: 2014

Commissioned by: Sing For Hope

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I'm deeply honored to have been invited to compose this song for An AIDS QUILT Songbook: Sing for Hope. The album features new songs by American composers, performed by an all-star roster of musicians – including Joyce DiDonato, Jamie Barton, Sasha Cooke, Isabel Leonard, Sean Pannikar, Susanna Phillips, Matthew Polenzani, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, clarinetist Anthony McGill, actors Sharon Stone and Ansel Elgort, and many more. It was a privilege to record One Child with soprano Melody Moore, and to be a part of this extraordinary project. All profits from the sale of this album go to amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research.

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Recording of One Child:

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"Among the brand new songs created expressly for this recording is "One Child," featuring beautiful lyrics by Sara Cooper that point to the promising possibility of a child surviving AIDS and ushering in a new era of health and well-being where once there was so much death and suffering. The poet asks "Is this the moment? Is this the time? Is this when we leave it all behind us? When soon only whispers will remind us of those awful scorching decades that took so many lives." Gregg Kallor has set these lyrics with utmost care, with gentle dissonance that perfectly captures the longing of the text. Soprano Melody Moore's singing is exemplary for its beauty and clarity."

— Journal of Singing

Stephen Crane

STEPHEN CRANE SONGS 

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Poems by: Stephen Crane

Duration: 7 minutes

Composed: 2015

Commissioned by: SubCulture Arts Underground, New York

Premiere: April 28, 2015 by Matthew Worth (baritone), Adriana Zabala (mezzo-soprano), and Gregg Kallor at SubCulture New York

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Discovering Stephen Crane’s poems felt to me a bit like finding hidden treasure; the vivid imagery gleams and sparkles, and his keen observational insight is priceless. Reading the poems made me laugh, and then reflect. It’s a great storyteller who can draw us in with a sense of immediacy, and deliver a resonant message that lingers.

The four Crane poems that I’ve set to music in this group of songs paint scenes in which the narrator experiences something shocking, then reflects, and responds – with empathy, and calm swagger. For performers, this is a fantastic opportunity to both participate in the story and to comment on it, inhabiting two different characters interacting with each other. The interactions are brief (each song lasts about ninety seconds), but potent.

Crane's writing is cool and somewhat casual on the surface; underneath it’s biting, ironic, caustic, funny, and ultimately very humane.

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Crane Songs:

1. A man said to the universe

2. In the desert

3. I saw a man pursuing the horizon

4. Think as I think

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Recordings of Crane Songs:

Emily Dickinson

EMILY DICKINSON songs

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Poems by: Emily Dickinson

Duration: 20 minutes

Composed: 2006

Premiere: March 20, 2007 by Adriana Zabala (mezzo-soprano) and Gregg Kallor at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City

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“MY BUSINESS IS TO SING!” Emily Dickinson once wrote; what she sings of is the exhilaration of being alive.

In It bloomed and dropt, Dickinson mourns the loss of a single “noon,” a metaphor for “the instantaneous, arrested present… when all accident, or ‘grossness,’ is discarded and there is nothing but essence.”* It isn't the passage of time that she regrets, but the lost opportunity to inhale more deeply the intoxicating ether of experience. For the poet who “would eat evanescence slowly,” the moment is everything.

And it is the moment to which she so compellingly calls our attention — the rapture of those first precious moments of spring, the frenzied urge of sexual yearning, the anguish of watching a beloved die. She illuminates these fleeting sensations with exquisite nuance, urging us to savor them before they vanish forever.

“Let Emily sing for you because she cannot pray,” she wrote to her grieving cousins after their father died. A poem, for her, was no mere abstraction, but a vital force — a prayer, a comfort, an inspiration. She felt impelled to let others hear the “noiseless noise in the Orchard” and her poems incite us to seek that noise — that essence — ourselves. “Exhilaration,” she tells us, “is within.”

Emily Dickinson once asked, “Do I paint it natural?” I have tried to preserve, as much as possible, the unique voice of this extraordinary poet. I hope these songs paint it natural.

* from Richard Sewall’s excellent biography, “The Life of Emily Dickinson” (Harvard University Press, 2003)

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Exhilaration (song-cycle):

1. Exhilaration is the Breeze

2. It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon —

3. Bee! I'm expecting you!

4. We Cover Thee — Sweet Face —

5. Wild Nights — Wild Nights!

6. What Inn is this

7. I should not dare to leave my friend

8. Still own thee — still thou art —

9. Exhilaration — is within —

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Recordings of Exhilaration:

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Herschel Garfein

LULLABY

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Lyrics by: Herschel Garfein

Duration: 3 minutes

Composed: 2005

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Lullaby is a musical kiss to a life just beginning. Herschel Garfein’s beautiful lyrics are a celebration of love and life, and the promise of tomorrow.

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Recording of Lullaby:

Clementine Von Radics

A PRAYER

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Poem by: Clementine Von Radics

Duration: 5 minutes

Composed: 2016

Commissioned by: Melody Moore

Premiere: May 25, 2016 by Melody Moore (soprano) and Robert Mollicone (piano) at Carnegie Hall, NYC

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Clementine Von Radics’ “A Prayer” gave me chills the first time I read it, and every time since. When Melody Moore asked me to set the text for her 2016 Carnegie Hall debut, I wanted to write something that would let the fragile tenderness of the poem speak, and give Melody room to do what she does so, so beautifully. Recording this song with her (on the album: The Tell-Tale Heart) was incredibly special for us both.

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Recording of A Prayer:

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Read Clementine’s gorgeous poetry!

Please consider buying this exquisite collection of Clementine’s poems (including A Prayer) from your local bookstore. Otherwise, get it on Amazon:

Robert Richardson/Mark Twain

WARM SUMMER SUN

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Poem by: Robert Richardson, adapted by Mark Twain

Duration: 2 minutes

Composed: 2015

Commissioned by: SubCulture Arts Underground, New York

Premiere: April 28, 2015 by Matthew Worth (baritone), Adriana Zabala (mezzo-soprano) and Gregg Kallor at SubCulture New York

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Warm Summer Sun is a setting of Mark Twain’s adaptation of the final stanza of Robert Richardson’s Annette, which Twain transformed into a beautiful lullaby for the headstone of his recently deceased daughter.

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Warm Summer Sun
Warm summer sun, 
Shine kindly here, 
Warm southern wind, 
Blow softly here. 
Green sod above, 
Lie light, lie light. 
Good night, dear heart, 
Good night, good night.

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Recording of Warm Summer Sun:

Christina Rossetti

SONG

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Poem by: Christina Rossetti

Duration: 3 minutes

Composed: 2007

Premiere: October 26, 2008 by Adriana Zabala (mezzo-soprano) and Gregg Kallor at the Housing Works Bookstore in New York City

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Song is a love letter at life’s end'; there’s no fear or regret, only words of comfort for the one who remains.

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Song
When I am dead, my dearest, 
Sing no sad songs for me; 
Plant thou no roses at my head, 
Nor shady cypress tree: 
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet; 
And if thou wilt, remember, 
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows, 
I shall not feel the rain; 
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain: 
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set, 
Haply I may remember, 
And haply may forget.

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Recording of Song:

Sara Teasdale

Sara Teasdale songs

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Poems by: Sara Teasdale

Duration: 5 minutes

Composed: 2015

Commissioned by: SubCulture Arts Underground, New York

Premiere: April 28, 2015 by Adriana Zabala (mezzo-soprano) and Gregg Kallor at SubCulture New York

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Sara Teasdale’s poem is a perfect expression of the pain of unrequited love. There is great beauty in its quiet resignation – all the more poignant because it’s so gently stated.

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Sara Teasdale songs:

1. But Not To Me

2. The Wind

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But Not To Me
The April night is still and sweet
With flowers on every tree; 
Peace comes to them on quiet feet, 
But not to me.

My peace is hidden in his breast
Where I shall never be; 
Love comes to-night to all the rest, 
But not to me.

The Wind

A wind is blowing over my soul, 
I hear it cry the whole night through — 
Is there no peace for me on earth
Except with you?

Alas, the wind has made me wise, 
Over my naked soul it blew, —
There is no peace for me on earth
Even with you.

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Recordings of Teasdale songs:

Elinor Wylie

little elegy

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Poem by: Elinor Wylie

Duration: 2 minutes

Composed: 2015

Commissioned by: SubCulture Arts Underground, New York

Premiere: April 28, 2015 by Adriana Zabala (mezzo-soprano) and Gregg Kallor at SubCulture New York

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Little Elegy
Without you
No rose can grow; 
No leaf be green
If never seen
Your sweetest face; 
No bird have grace
Or power to sing; 
Or anything
Be kind, or fair, 
And you nowhere.

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Recording of Little Elegy:

William Butler Yeats

YEATS SONGS

Instrumentation: voice and piano

Poems by: William Butler Yeats

Duration: 18 minutes

Composed: 2007, 2015

Premiere: March 20, 2007 by Adriana Zabala (mezzo-soprano) and Gregg Kallor at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City

*The Mermaid premiere: April 28, 2015 by Adriana Zabala (mezzo-soprano) and Gregg Kallor at SubCulture New York

*When You Are Old premiere: April 28, 2015 by Matthew Worth (baritone) and Gregg Kallor at SubCulture New York

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William Butler Yeats’ lilting rhythms and gorgeous language – the very sounds of his words – are captivating, but it’s the immediacy of his poems that I find so moving. He navigates fluidly between towering pride and self-effacement – shouting, whispering, cajoling, imploring, and enthralling with a storyteller’s magic. One of the things I love about Yeats is that he’s so confident and bold in one poem, and then so completely vulnerable in the next.

Yeats rhapsodizes with sublime arrogance about the moment of creative inspiration in Ribh In Ecstasy, likening his creative prowess to the earth-shattering orgy of gods spawning new gods. Then, as suddenly as it comes, the moment passes, and he leaves us in literary post-coital bliss.

In He Wishes for the Cloths of heaven, Yeats gives us an exquisitely tender expression of love that breaks my heart every time I read it. He writes:

I have spread my dreams under your feet;

Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.

The songs in this set are grouped in pairs that highlight these two sides of Yeats’ poetry. And it ends, as all cycles should, with a drinking song. Cheers.

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Yeats Songs:

1. Ribh In Ecstasy

2. He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven

3. The Lady's First Song

4. The Mermaid

5. A Coat

6. When You Are Old

7. A Drunken Man's Praise of Sobriety

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Recordings of Yeats Songs:

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First Dance

First Dance

Instrumentation: piano duet (4 hands, 1 piano)

Duration: 5 minutes

Composed: 2019

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My wife, Dasha Koltunyuk, and I played this celebratory piece together at our wedding; it was our first dance as a married couple.

Frankenstein

“Kallor achieved a perfect balance of text and music... galvanized into a singular compositional voice.”

— Opera News

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Frankenstein

music and libretto by Gregg Kallor / adapted from Mary Shelley’s novel

rehearsal video, October 2018

(additional materials available upon request)

Joshua Jeremiah, ( – ) • Brian Cheney, Victor Frankenstein • Jennifer Johnson Cano, Elizabeth Lavenza

Joshua Roman, cello • Gregg Kallor, piano/composer

Sarah Meyers, director • Tláloc López-Watermann, lighting design

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I began my musical exploration of Frankenstein in 2018 by composing three scenes that were presented by The Angel's Share and On Site Opera in the Catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York. Rather than reinforce the brutish spectacle with which Mary Shelley’s timeless, haunting tale is often associated, I aim to return this work to its core: the heartbreaking story of a living, feeling creature, brought into the world only to be forsaken by its creator, Victor Frankenstein - a scientist driven relentlessly by the urge to create an artificial life, regardless of the cost. Told from the Creature’s perspective, Frankenstein focuses on the horror of alienation.

The Creature’s existence is a stark reminder of the unintended consequences of unfettered ambition and unlimited scientific potential, and of the need for empathy. I want to lift Shelley’s staggeringly beautiful work off the page with music that makes us feel for the Creature, its creator, and every victim in this tragic story.

What drives my creation of this opera is the potential for helping us to connect with the characters and with each other in a deeply needed way; to help us better listen to one another, especially in an era of intensifying xenophobia and persistent bigotry. The novel was published 200 years ago; and still, we continue to vilify “otherness.” Frankenstein compels us to consider our humanity. I believe that telling this story, in this time, and in this way, is vital.

These Frankenstein sketches - originally for three singers, cello, and piano - are the seeds from which the opera will grow into a two-act, 120-minute fully-staged production with eight characters and a chamber orchestra. Frankenstein so beautifully and vividly captures the fundamental connection between, and responsibility toward, living beings and the world in which we live. My goal is to approach the storytelling with a clarity and relatability that allow the humanity of the text to speak through the music.

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photos by Kevin Condon

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"Here, as in The Tell-Tale Heart, Kallor achieved a perfect balance of text and music. The libretto hued quite closely to Mary Shelley’s original text, serving as a welcome reminder of her wonderful prose. Kallor’s music is a most interesting synthesis of elements of classical and jazz, galvanized into a singular compositional voice. There is plenty of heartfelt lyricism in his music, yet also enough complexity to keep it intriguing for those of us who seek more." 

–Arlo McKinnon, Opera News

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NEW YORK'S MOST MEMORABLE CONCERTS OF 2018

The world premiere of Sketches from Frankenstein was featured as one of the Most Memorable Concerts of 2018 by both WQXR and OperaWire!

"But if I simply must select a single performance, above all, then that is actually quite easy: Gregg Kallor’s Sketches from Frankenstein.”

–Matt Costello, Opera Wire

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“The observations in the words, and the depth of feeling in the music were extremely powerful.

...How the rest of the opera unfolds remains to be seen. But for the time being, the monster’s anguished monologue that encompasses so much of the story’s larger themes could easily be a ‘scena’ to perform in recitals – especially as sung by the plush voice of Joshua Jeremiah. Singers are augmenting their standard romantic-era Schubert/Schumann/Wolf repertoire in any number of ways, and the penetrating dramatic truths of Frankenstein might co-exist with 19th-century lieder more easily than one might think.”

–David Patrick Stearns, Condemned To Music

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“Rising up from a groan of pain out of the cello, Kallor’s dynamically-charged score is intricate yet approachable with long, singable lines and plenty of moody atmosphere... What it does do extremely well is support the emotional journeys of its protagonists.

…As Frankenstein recounts his creation’s chilling promise that “I will be with you on your wedding night”, a hollow voice drifts in from an adjoining burial chamber to merge in haunting harmonies – a seriously chilling moment.”

–Clive Paget, Limelight

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“The score of these sketches was modern, edgy, well-matched to the subject matter, while not being chaotically 12-tone. The cello, played with a warm beauty by Joshua Roman, echoed the sung pleas of both the creature and the cornered Frankenstein. You can imagine what that wonderful instrument sounded like in the stone chambers.

And the composer played the piano part, his technique itself dazzling as he kept the propulsive, fierce music racing to match the emotional intensity of the dramatic scenes being played, both on the stage area, and even amidst the audience itself.

Quite something. The singers also reveled in the drama and the sheer sonority of the piece.

...It’s my guess that everyone in attendance came away from this night feeling that this had been an extraordinary experience.”

–Matt Costello, Opera Wire

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“The moving performance, a credit to Kallor, was also a reminder of the emotional depths in Frankenstein, a quality nearly forgotten in the teenage Mary Shelley’s evocation of fear and longing at the dawn of industrial science. Frankenstein is so often read as an allegory of scientific hubris, of humans’ ability to play God with nuclear power, genetics, and artificial intelligence, that its poetry and complexity have all but been obscured by images of Robert Oppenheimer, Craig Venter, and Ray Kurzweil. Shelley didn’t write an admonition on playing God. She wrote a story about humanity losing its soul.”

–Kevin Berger, Editor

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Check out photos from the production in The New York Times' "Frankenstein at 200" special feature!

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“Kallor’s music is equally Straussian in scale and emotional impact.”

–Rick Perdian, Seen and Heard International

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“Kallor’s a musician of great atmospheric sensuality, who, on opening night, played piano with equally great sensitivity.

His sketches from Frankenstein, for instance, put a refreshing spin on Mary Shelley’s much-adapted novel about an 18th-century scientist and his automaton. While many previous retellings have milked the Romantic horror angle of the epistolary fable or simply reached for camp, Kallor focuses his account on the psychology of the beast, the loneliness experienced by a creation who yearns for (but can never quite realize) companionship.

...the portrait was complex, by turns frightening and sympathetic.”

–Joel Rozen, Parterre Box

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“Kallor’s sterling artistry and riveting sense of theater made this October journey to Hell and back an experience to savor.

Kallor’s music is many good things: intelligent; unapologetically theatrical; emotionally evocative; virtuosic yet sensitive in its texturing. It is tonally coherent without overt predictability, accessible without banality. Kallor consistently provides precisely calculated support to his vocal lines, while also giving them temporal and contrapuntal space in which to work their condign effects.

Spooky, meaty stuff.”

–Charles Geyer, My Scena

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“Audacity informed everything about this performance.

... These were sketches, of course, which the composer terms a work in progress, but I hope the final shape of the piece keeps the terrifying intimacy that we witnessed in Brooklyn.

... This is a composer I look forward to following.”

–Byron Nilsson, Words and Music

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“While the composer considers this a work in progress -- and sketches at that -- he certainly gets to the heart of things... In Kallor's own libretto, the humanity of the monster is clearly evident from the moment of his appearance, with the sometimes anxiety-ridden score (for piano and cello, here) adding to the anger and frustration of the deformed and crazed character.”

–Richard Sasanow, Broadway World

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“The greatest achievement of Kallor’s scores turned out to be the contrast between the stubborn unresolve of the music and the sheer anthemic catchiness of the vocal melodies.”

–Alan Young, New York Music Daily

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LICENSING & SCORE RENTAL

Please contact Noah Luna for all the particulars about score rentals, licenses, and whatnot. He's super nice, and super on top of it.

contact: Noah Luna

email: info@bcpmusic.org

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PUBLICITY

UNISON MEDIA

Please contact Andrew Ousley for all publicity and media inquiries. Andrew is awesome. You'll want to have a beer with him and hear every idea he has. And then have another round and hear more ideas.

contact: Andrew Ousley

email: andrew@unison.media

THE TELL-TALE HEART

“SIMULTANEOUSLY MACABRE AND, AT MOMENTS, DARKLY HUMOROUS... A GRAND TOUR DE FORCE”

— Opera News

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A Ghost Story chamber opera

music and libretto by Gregg Kallor / adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story

rehearsal video, October 2018

Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano • Joshua Roman, cello • Gregg Kallor, piano/composer

Sarah Meyers, director • Tláloc López-Watermann, lighting design

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The Tell-Tale Heart is a one-act chamber opera based on the chilling short story by Edgar Allan Poe. Evoking the experience of a campfire ghost story and easily adaptable for both staged presentations and concert performances, this monodrama pulls audiences into the deeply disturbed mind of a narrator as she recounts and relives a recent murder – only to be haunted by the overwhelming sound of her victim’s persistently beating heart.

Cast: 1 singer

Ensemble: cello and piano

Duration: 25 minutes

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The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center will present Gregg Kallor's ghost story chamber opera, The Tell-Tale Heart, on Halloween 2023. Kallor unveiled his setting of Edgar Allan Poe's terrifying short story in a 100-year-old vaulted crypt beneath the Church of the Intercession in Harlem, New York City in October 2016.

Kallor premiered the creepy tale with mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Pojanowski and cellist Joshua Roman in a semi-staging by director Sarah Meyers (Metropolitan Opera), with a lighting design by Shawn Kaufman. The sold-out performances were presented by The Crypt Sessions in collaboration with On Site Opera.

Following on the heels of the acclaimed premiere, Kallor reprised the piece with soprano Melody Moore and Joshua Roman at SubCulture NY in January 2017. Moore, Roman, and Kallor recorded The Tell-Tale Heart with GRAMMY®-winning producer Adam Abeshouse; the album was released in October 2018. Opera News calls it "a tour-de-force performance, a true marriage of song, declamation, poetry and psychological thriller."

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano performed in a new production of The Tell-Tale Heart with Roman and Kallor, directed by Sarah Meyers, with lighting design by Tláloc López-Watermann, in the Catacombs of Historic Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY in October 2018, presented by The Angel’s Share (video shown above). Johnson Cano, Roman, and Kallor performed a concert version of the piece in November 2018 at the University of Akron, presented by Tuesday Musical Association.

photos by Kevin Condon

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"The concert concluded with a powerful performance featuring Jennifer Johnson Cano in Kallor’s The Tell-Tale Heart. Written for soprano, ‘cello and piano, this piece colorfully relays Poe’s haunting tale almost verbatim and in toto. It is simultaneously macabre and, at moments, darkly humorous... it is a grand tour de force for both singer and ensemble."

–Arlo McKinnon, Opera News

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"The piece was the work of a sure dramatist, with a rich, tonally-based harmonic vocabulary that could give the story all of the dramatic range it needed. Vocal lines were ready and willing to navigate any and all twists in the story. The unifying leitmotif, to the naked ear, was a melody that began conventionally but quickly took on a time-stretching quality like that in Stravinsky’s Petroushka, seamlessly changing time signatures in ways that give the impression of the music slipping into a different zone. And that was appropriate. The narrator swears he’s sane but is clearly unmoored as he kills and dismembers an old man (His father? A landlord?) only because he doesn’t like the way one of his eyes looks. Yes, compelling stuff, particularly as sung by Jennifer Johnson Cano."

–David Patrick Stearns, Condemned to Music

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"I can't think of a better opera to become a new Halloween tradition."

–James Jorden, The New York Observer

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“Johnson Cano runs the gamut, her body twitching with the killer’s professed nervousness, even as she tries to convince us of her sanity. It’s a classy, voice, full-bodied and flexible, and she doesn’t miss a trick exploring the mind of a some-would-say-lunatic. Kallor’s efficient, multi-faceted score runs the gamut, from intimate confession through mounting paranoia to ultimate terror… a tour de force of contemporary music drama.”

–Clive Paget, Limelight

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“Kallor transformed Poe’s 1843 tale of Gothic fiction into an operatic experience of epic emotional and musical proportions. As operatic heroines’ crash-burns go, the Narrator’s only real rivals are Strauss’s Elektra and Salome.

Kallor’s music is equally Straussian in scale and emotional impact. The vocal line… soared to ever increasing crescendos of sound and emotion. Piano and cello again combined to create the complex sonorities of a much larger ensemble… Kallor and Roman conjured up a ferocious, whirlwind of sound.

Cano's singing was volcanic: molten sound poured out of her. She was fearless in plumbing the depths of the Narrator’s psyche both vocally and dramatically. There were no props for her to rely on and only one lighting change, when a red wash coincided with the imagined beating of the victim’s heart that tormented her. It was just Cano and the music.  She’s a voice, talent and temperament to be reckoned with.”

–Rick Perdian, Seen and Heard International

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“As directed by Sarah Meyers, Jennifer Johnson Cano’s crazed killer had a subtlety, a reality as she progresses from obsession to plans, and finally to murder. It was a demanding tour-de-force… I found the retelling — and Cano’s amazing shifts in tone, as click-by-click she descended into madness, absolutely riveting.

...It’s my guess that everyone in attendance came away from this night feeling that this had been an extraordinary experience.”

–Matt Costello, Opera Wire

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“Kallor’s sterling artistry and riveting sense of theater made this October journey to Hell and back an experience to savor.

Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano delivered an intense and fully engaged performance of Kallor’s setting of “The Tell-Tale Heart.” It was a tour de force, admirable for both Cano’s vocal and dramatic handling, and Kallor’s evident depth of insight into Poe’s exquisite proto-Freudian tale of narcissism, psychosis, and guilt.

Spooky, meaty stuff.”

–Charles Geyer, My Scena

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“[Jennifer Johnson] Cano pulled out all the stops in The Tell-Tale Heart… It was a dynamic tour de force that ultimately demanded every bit of available firepower and range-stretching technique. In between those extremes, she delivered furtive puzzlement, and grisly determination, and finally a knockout portrait of sheer madness.”

–Alan Young, New York Music Daily

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“[Jennifer Johnson] Cano's coolly homicidal story -- climaxing with the beating heart of a dismembered man (hidden beneath the floorboards) driving her over the edge -- had the audience in the palm of her hand. With her fierce emotions echoing the scintillating, urgent score, she took every opportunity to bring the role to life (and death).”

Richard Sasanow, BroadwayWorld

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“[Jennifer Johnson] Cano, in her fearful monologue, in her drama to the edge of the stage, to her visceral voice, made the [The Tell-Tale Heart]… a thing of poetic horror.”

Harry Rolnick, ConcertoNet

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"Kallor mesmerizes until he terrifies."

-Susan Hall, Berkshire Fine Arts

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"The program, consisting of the short monodrama and two additional instrumental pieces (also by Kallor), moved nimbly from a sincere, emotional urgency, toward an effective climax of macabre hysteria."

-Patrick James, Parterre Box

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"Fearsome tendrils of sound rose from the piano and Mr. Roman's strings, reaching into the listener's mind to disquieting effect.

As the packed house sat and listened, one could not help think of the weight of the earth around the stone crypt and wonder if the spirits of those interred at this site might be listening."

–Paul Pelkonen, Superconductor

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“The Tell-Tale Heart is a terrific piece of music… gripping”

–George Grella, New York Classical Review

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"Go if you dare."

–Stephanie Simon, New York 1 News

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"Even after adding a second performance, the wait list for tickets tops 100."

–Amanda Angel, The Wall Street Journal

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"The Crypt Sessions celebrates Halloween with the world premiere of Gregg Kallor's dramatic cantata based on Edgar Allan Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart."

–Christina Ha, NYC Arts

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"The Tell-Tale Heart is a familiar tale to a lot of people - we want to give it to them in new clothes."

–Gregg Kallor, Schmopera interview

FOUND

FOUND

Instrumentation: orchestra (3, 3, 3, 2 - 4, 3, 3, 1 - timpani, 3 percussion - solo string quartet + full string section)

Duration: 10 minutes

Composed: 2011

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Found is the fifth movement of my piano suite, A SINGLE NOON. It's the Central Park of the suite - an oasis amidst the dizzying pace of the city, where time almost stands still. There's a feeling of contentment; of fulfillment. Of belonging.

Even as I composed Found for the piano, I wrote it with the orchestra in mind - the slow sustained chords and floating melodies seemed to call for the resonance of strings and winds and brass - and I've been itching to hear this orchestral version of the piece (it's never been performed).

Here's a performance of the original version.

Mouthful of Forevers

Mouthful of Forevers

Instrumentation: string orchestra

Duration: 14 minutes

Composed: 2017

Commissioned by: Town Hall Seattle

Premiere: June 21, 2017 by the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Joshua Roman at Town Hall Seattle

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"Mouthful of Forevers" is an exquisite/heartbreaking/perfect poem by Clementine Von Radics that slays me every time I read it. I wanted - needed, really - to respond musically to those words that make me feel so much.

The poem is a paean to a love that "came when we'd given up on asking love to come." Von Radics beautifully captures the vulnerability that comes from opening up to someone, and what it is that binds two people together: "I will kiss you like forgiveness. You will hold me like I'm hope... And I will not be afraid of your scars." To me, there is no more perfect expression of love.

I was thrilled and honored when Joshua Roman asked me to compose this piece for the Seattle Youth Symphony Orchestra to premiere at Town Hall Seattle, and I hope the music evokes the exuberance, fragility, and the deep, beautiful sigh of contentment embedded in Clementine's extraordinary poem.

A DRUNKEN MAN'S PRAISE OF SOBRIETY

A DRUNKEN MAN'S PRAISE OF SOBRIETY

Instrumentation: violin and piano

Duration: 5 minutes

Composed: 2012

Premiere: September 9, 2012 – Hrabba Attladottir (violin) and Gregg Kallor (piano); Bach Dancing & Dynamite Society, Half Moon Bay, CA

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William Butler Yeats' raucous poem, A Drunken Man's Praise of Sobriety, ends a set of songs I wrote several years ago (always best to close with a drinking song), and I thought it would make a fun romp for violin and piano.

A FEVERED DREAM

A Fevered Dream

Instrumentation: violin, cello, and piano

Duration: 23 minutes

Composed: 2015

Commissioned by: SubCulture Arts Underground, New York

Premiere: June 11, 2015 by Miranda Cuckson (violin), Joshua Roman (cello), and Gregg Kallor (piano) at SubCulture NYC

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The title of this piece comes from Edgar Lee Masters' breathless poem, "Love is a madness," and the five movements weave through the intoxication of falling in love and the searing pain of love crumbling. Masters tells us, "The beginning and the end are devoid of speech." But not of music.

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A Fevered Dream:

1. Dirty Little Secret

2. Blink

3. Things Unsaid

4. Whispers

5. Afterwards

A SINGLE NOON

A SINGLE NOON

Instrumentation: cello and piano

Duration: 3 minutes

Composed: 2007

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The opening of movement of my NYC-inspired piano suite, A Single Noon, is the sort of thing you might hum to yourself while taking a walk. The sighing theme - sweet, faintly nostalgic - feels just right for the rich timbre of the cello.

A Single Noon

A SINGLE NOON

Instrumentation: solo piano

Duration: 45 minutes

Composed: 2010

Premiere: April 20, 2011 by Gregg Kallor at Weill Recital Hall at Carnegie Hall in New York City

 A Single Noon is a tableau of life in New York City told through a combination of composed music and improvisation. The nine movements are evocative snapshots – moments of caffeinated bliss, embarrassing subway mishaps, the buzzing energy of a city driven by dynamic, thoughtful, talented, and slightly crazy people – that coalesce into a more complete story like an album of postcards, or memories.

Each movement develops an aspect of the Single Noon theme, and several movements (Broken Sentences, Straphanger’s Lurch, Giants, and Here Now) offer room to stretch the musical fabric through improvisation. Since not all pianists are comfortable improvising, it was important for me to find a way to make the sections for improvisation optional, sort of like scenic detours on a highway; the musical narrative won’t be compromised if you stick to the paved road, so to speak – you’ll just arrive a little sooner.

New York humbles me, and makes me feel part of something big – I have never felt more alive or at home anywhere else. A Single Noon is a love letter to this incredible city.

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A Single Noon:

1. A Single Noon

2. Broken Sentences

3. Night

4. Straphanger's Lurch

5. Found

6. Espresso Nirvana

7. Giants

8. Things to Come

9. Here Now

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“A SINGLE NOON is the work of an extraordinary pianist, a composer of great distinction and a true conceptualist... this ambitious and unique suite takes us somewhere that is very deeply heartfelt and dazzlingly executed. This is 21st-century music that has clearly absorbed the past and looks to a bright and borderless musical future.”

— Fred Hersch

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