A SINGLE NOON
Instrumentation: cello and piano
Duration: 3 minutes
Composed: 2007
Frankenstein
(in progress)
music by Gregg Kallor / libretto adapted from Mary Shelley’s novel
Cast: 3 singers (baritone, tenor, and mezzo-soprano)
Ensemble: cello and piano
Duration: 45 minutes
Sketches from Frankenstein, premiered in October 2018, encompasses three scenes that are, for me, the heart and essence of Mary Shelley’s novel. They reveal the deep pathos of the creature, the agonizing moral dilemma that haunts Victor Frankenstein, and the fraught love between Victor and his fiancée, Elizabeth.
Vision for the completed opera: These initial scenes will be expanded into a two-act opera that tells the full story of Frankenstein. In the hope of bringing this story to as many stages as possible, I plan to create two versions of the completed opera: one for a chamber ensemble, and one for a fuller orchestra. My goal is to approach the storytelling with a clarity and relatability that allow the humanity of the text to speak through music in both versions.
Rehearsal video, October 2018
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
Published 200 years ago, essentially inventing the science-fiction genre, Mary Shelley’s novel, Frankenstein, tells the heartbreaking story of a living, feeling creature, brought into the world only to be forsaken by its creator and left to fend for itself. Far from the grunting Hollywood brutishness of Boris Karloff, Frankenstein vividly conveys the agony of a being whose desire for emotional nourishment is repeatedly and violently rejected, and who is driven to respond in kind.
I want to lift Shelley’s staggeringly beautiful work off the page with music that makes us feel for the creature, whose tragic existence is a stark reminder of the unintended consequences of unfettered ambition and unlimited scientific potential, and of the need for empathy. I have begun adapting Shelley’s masterpiece into an opera because I believe that telling this story, in this time, and in this way, is vital.
Yes - Frankenstein is certainly a cautionary tale for our own era of genetic engineering and unprecedented advances in biotechnology; with viable artificial intelligence no longer a mere fantasy, considering the ethical questions Frankenstein poses is urgent.
But what drives my creation of this opera more than anything is potential for helping us to connect - viscerally, emotionally - with the characters and with each other in an elemental and deeply needed way; to make us feel and make us listen to one another, especially in an era of intensifying xenophobia and virulent tribalism. In our continued struggle for equality and understanding, the story of a being that is shunned and vilified for being “other” is especially resonant when considered from the perspective of an immigrant or refugee from afar, or someone right in front of us who is black/gay/disabled/poor/orphaned, or who holds different religious or political views. Frankenstein compels us to consider our humanity.
These Frankenstein sketches are a work in progress; they are the seeds from which I hope the opera will grow into a fully staged and orchestrated production.
photos by Kevin Condon
"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
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
“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
“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
“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
Check out photos from the production in The New York Times' "Frankenstein at 200" special feature!
“Kallor’s music is equally Straussian in scale and emotional impact.”
–Rick Perdian, Seen and Heard International
“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
“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
“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
“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
“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
THE ANSWER IS: YES
Instrumentation: solo piano
Duration: 5 minutes
Composed: 2018
Premiere: October 10, 2018 by Gregg Kallor in the Catacombs at Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY
Leonard Bernstein would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2018. I composed a short piano piece in honor of the man whose singular ability to communicate passion to audiences around the world continues to inspire me.
Bernstein gave a series of lectures at Harvard University in 1973 in which he took Charles Ives' metaphysical "Unanswered Question" out for a spin. The wide-ranging discussion encompassed everything from music analysis and history to linguistics, aesthetic philosophy, phonology, and physics. To me, this exploration encapsulates Bernstein: passionate, thoughtful, inclusive, communicative, joyful.
Six lectures culminate in what might be considered Bernstein’s artistic credo - a celebratory, organic synthesis of many styles and ideas, shared with sincerity and exuberance. Bernstein concludes with an open heart and open arms: “I’m no longer quite sure what the question is, but I do know the answer, and the answer is: Yes.”
“As a soloist, Kallor played a Bernstein tribute titled The Answer Is: Yes, and if you braced yourself for West Side Story cliches, you were happily surprised with an extravagant fantasy... that showed just how fine of a pianist Kallor is.”
–David Patrick Stearns, Condemned To Music
“an attractive, jazz-inflected solo”
–Clive Paget, Limelight
“There were no Bernstein musical quotes, but his spirit was present in Kallor’s own melodies, rhythms and dynamism. The seamless interplay between classical and jazz were Kallor’s alone.”
–Rick Perdian, Seen and Heard International
“a short, breezy piece that while, very much in Kallor’s style, also cleverly weaved in moments that recalled bits of Lenny’s best.”
–Matt Costello, Opera Wire
“Kallor premiered a new piece for solo piano in tribute to Leonard Bernstein, who happens to be buried at Green-Wood. It was an appropriate tribute to the maestro, blending classical, jazz and dizzying agility.”
–Richard Sasanow, Broadway World
“Kallor then delivered another world premiere, solo, playing The Answer Is: Yes, a dedication to Leonard Bernstein (who according to the program notes is a permanent Green-Wood resident). The title is a typically exuberant Bernstein quote from a series of Harvard lectures, and rang true as Kallor methodically shifted gears between distantly Stravinskian, balletesque leaps and bounds, saturnine lustre and a little bittersweet blues. So many other composers inspired by Bernstein end up aping him. Kallor did nothing of the sort.”
–Alan Young, New York Music Daily
A Musical Ghost Story chamer opera
music by Gregg Kallor / text adapted from Edgar Allan Poe’s short story
Cast: 1 singer (mezzo-soprano or soprano)
Ensemble: cello and piano
Duration: 25 minutes
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 adaptable for both staged presentations and concert performances, this monodrama pulls audiences into the deeply disturbed mind of its murderous narrator.
Rehearsal video, October 2018
Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano • Joshua Roman, cello • Gregg Kallor, piano/composer
Sarah Meyers, director • Tláloc López-Watermann, lighting design
Composer-pianist Gregg Kallor unveiled his setting of Edgar Allan Poe's terrifying short story, The Tell-Tale Heart, in a 100-year old vaulted crypt beneath the Church of the Intercession in New York City in October 2016 - just before Halloween.
Kallor premiered the creepy tale with mezzo-soprano Elizabeth Pojanowski and cellist Joshua Roman in a semi-staging by Sarah Meyers (Metropolitan Opera), with a lighting design by Shawn Kaufman. The two 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 in a late-night performance 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.
Mezzo-soprano Jennifer Johnson Cano performed the piece in a new production with Roman and Kallor, again directed by Sarah Meyers, with lighting design by Tláloc López-Watermann, in the Catacombs of 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.
"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
"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
"I can't think of a better opera to become a new Halloween tradition."
–James Jorden, The New York Observer
“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
“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
“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
“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
“[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
“[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
“[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
"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
"Kallor mesmerizes until he terrifies."
-Susan Hall, Berkshire Fine Arts
"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
"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
“The Tell-Tale Heart is a terrific piece of music… gripping”
–George Grella, New York Classical Review
"Go if you dare."
–Stephanie Simon, New York 1 News
"Even after adding a second performance, the wait list for tickets tops 100."
–Amanda Angel, The Wall Street Journal
"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
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
"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.
Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow
Instrumentation: string quartet and piano
Duration: 29 minutes
Composed: 2017
Commissioned by: the Classical Recording Foundation and funded by a gift from Linda and Stuart Nelson
Premiere: June 5, 2017 by the Attacca Quartet and Gregg Kallor at The Sheen Center, NYC
A tribute to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Every year on Martin Luther King, Jr's birthday, I spend some time with his speeches. Dr. King's birthday is a few days before mine, and this year I turned 39 - the same age that Dr. King was when he was assassinated. It made me wonder what further words of conscience he might have offered had he lived longer - and what I would leave for the world if I were to die so young.
I've never felt more fear or uncertainty about the way we communicate with each other and what that means for our future than I have these past few months, and I find myself increasingly drawn to Dr. King's message of compassion, and inclusiveness, and social and economic equality for everyone. His words have been a great comfort to me during this unsettling period, and my new composition for piano and string quartet is inspired by Dr. King's singular faith in our capacity to love, and to do better.
The title of the suite, Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow, comes from a passage in Dr. King's Letter from Birmingham Jail, which he wrote during a period of solitary confinement in the Alabama prison. The letter is an exquisite statement about the dire urgency of achieving social and economic justice, and about the moral and practical implications of nonviolence as the means of getting there. It's also a searing indictment of those who advocated for the status quo in the face of horrible injustice. And it's a moving plea for understanding, and mutual respect.
I hope the music conveys the profound impact his words have had on me.
Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow:
The Fierce Urgency of Now
The Road Ahead
Into the Hearts of Humanity
Only When It Is Dark Enough, Can You See The Stars
Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow
1. The Fierce Urgency of Now
"We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."
-from MLK's "I Have a Dream" speech
delivered August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
2. The Road Ahead
"And I must confess, my friends, that the road ahead will not always be smooth. There will still be rocky places of frustration and meandering points of bewilderment. There will be inevitable setbacks here and there. And there will be those moments when the buoyancy of hope will be transformed into the fatigue of despair. Our dreams will sometimes be shattered and our ethereal hopes blasted. We may again, with tear-drenched eyes, have to stand before the bier of some courageous civil rights worker whose life will be snuffed out by the dastardly acts of bloodthirsty mobs. But difficult and painful as it is, we must walk on in the days ahead with an audacious faith in the future."
-from Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?
published in 1967
3. Into the Hearts of Humanity
"And here was a man of nonviolence [Gandhi], falling at the hand of a man of violence. Here was a man of love falling at the hands of a man of hate. This seems the way of history... And the man who shot Gandhi only shot him into the hearts of humanity. And just as when Abraham Lincoln was shot - mark you, for the same reason that Mahatma Gandhi was shot, that is, the attempt to heal the wounds of a divided nation - when the great leader Abraham Lincoln was shot, Secretary Stanton stood by the body of this leader and said, "Now he belongs to the ages." And that same thing can be said about Mahatma Gandhi now. He belongs to the ages, and he belongs especially to this age, an age drifting once more to its doom. And he has revealed to us that we must learn to go another way."
-from MLK's Palm Sunday sermon on Mohandas K. Gandhi
delivered at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama on March 22, 1959
4. Only When It Is Dark Enough, Can You See the Stars
"The nation is sick. Trouble is in the land. Confusion all around... But I know, somehow, that only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars."
-from MLK's "I've Been To The Mountaintop" speech
delivered April 3, 1968 at the Bishop Charles Mason Temple Church in Memphis, TN
5. Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow
"Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty."
-from Letter From Birmingham Jail
published in Why We Can't Wait in 1963
"I Have A Dream"
delivered August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
"I've Been To The Mountaintop"
delivered April 3, 1968 in Memphis, TN
Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech
delivered December 10, 1964 in Oslo, Norway
"Amid Kallor's jazz-inflected sound world, a lyrical grace threaded through the five cohesive movements. The music seemed to distill complex ruminations into a clear vision...
Floating, sunkissed passages swam with underlying tension...
The final movement left the audience with a peaceful atmosphere, weaving an elegant veil of serene tones - a satisfying nexus between social conflict and art."
-Cristina Schreil
"The main event was the world premiere of Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow, a piano quintet conceived as a tribute to Martin Luther King, Jr. With the composer at the piano, the [Attacca] quartet dug into the first movement, 'The Fierce Urgency of Now', its angularity and syncopations reflecting the strength in King's 'I Have a Dream' speech. Later came blues-infused melodies floating over alluring pizzicato ostinatos alternating with bristling, rapid energy. The fifth movement, which gives the work its title, comes from King's 1963 'Letter from a Birmingham Jail', and in its granitic, complex chords, left a mood of optimism in its wake."
-Bruce Hodges
"Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow... incorporates modern melodic and jazz ideas in a flawless fusion of sounds, reflecting the tension, unease and tragedy of Dr. King's too-brief life.
The work uses piano and string quartet in effective tandem, generating fresh voicings as the instruments are sounded, combined and recombined. The five movements are pure music, with some room for Mr. Kallor's piano to improvise against the ensemble. There is a stunning fast movement where fast pizzicato work dives and leaps over a keening violin and Mr. Kallor's steady pianism.
The slow final movement was the best of all. Here, slow, hypnotic chords and gentle string melodies forged a gentle, hopeful cloak of sound, a light and transparent comfort in these dark times."
-Paul J. Pelkonen
"[Kallor] is preternaturally comfortable in both the jazz and classical idioms. This gives his music a wonderful, off-kilter beat and also provides the satisfaction of the demands of classical rigor. That this convergence works is a tribute to this highly gifted contemporary composer...
We heard Kallor's Halloween classic, The Tell-Tale Heart, at a Crypt event around All Hollow's Eve as it unfolded into an instant classic. It is easy to see a piece like Some Not Too Distant Tomorrow being performed in the Oprah Winfrey Theatre at the Museum of African American History on the Washington Mall. It is both an unusual and a monumental tribute to a leader who died as he was beginning to push for economic justice in America.
Cutting edge music is carving out all kinds of new edges with composers like Gregg Kallor. Despite dire predictions about the death of classical, its liveliness is erupting all around us."
-Susan Hall
FANTASY OVERTURE
Instrumentation: orchestra (3, 3, 3, 2 - 4, 2, 3, 1 - timpani, 3 percussion - strings)
Duration: 8 minutes
Composed: 2008
Commissioned by: the Hartford Symphony Orchestra
Premiere: February 14, 2009 by The Hartford Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Marc Kaplan
The Hartford Symphony Orchestra commissioned me to compose a piece for their family concert series and my good friend, Marc Kaplan, conducted the premiere. Very special homecoming.
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
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.
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
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.
A Fevered Dream:
Dirty Little Secret
Blink
Things Unsaid
Whispers
Afterwards
SHORT STORIES
Instrumentation: violin and piano
Duration: 15 minutes
Composed: 2012
My maternal grandmother was a talented violinist, but she stopped playing after her mother died. By the time I was alive, her arthritis prevented her from holding the violin. Her parents bought her a baby grand piano for her sixteenth birthday so that she and her sister, a cellist, could invite friends over to play chamber music. That was the instrument on which I learned to play.
I grew up six blocks from my grandparents and saw them most days of the week. We were very close. They came to every concert I gave and always sat right in front (arriving super early to ensure snagging that prime real estate). They never got to hear this music, but I feel their presence very strongly when I play it.
I wrote Short Stories imagining my grandmother playing it, and my grandfather listening to it. She was a gentle, quiet soul he was the strongest man I've ever known. Both had a touch of mischief. They were deeply in love for nearly 63 years.
Short Stories:
Faces and Names
A Kept Promise
Sticks and Stones
UNDERCURRENT
Instrumentation: cello and piano
Duration: 15 minutes
Composed: 2013
with cellist Joshua Roman at SubCulture NY
Sometimes there's a disconnect between the things we feel and the things we say; Undercurrent explores where the two meet. The simmering line that the cello and piano pass back and forth is always churning away just under the surface, like the fraught subtext that sometimes attends our most intimate conversations - until it bubbles up and explodes. (Some relationships are, um... dynamic.) The middle movement evokes that fragile place of unspoken intimacy - where a glance, a gesture, a touch can mean everything.
A PRAYER
Instrumentation: voice and piano
Poem by: Clementine Von Radics
Duration: 5 minutes
Composed: 2016
Premiere: May 25, 2016 by Melody Moore (soprano) and Robert Mollicone (piano) at Carnegie Hall, NYC
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.
Recordings of A Prayer:
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:
BUT NOT TO ME
Instrumentation: voice and piano
Poem 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
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.
poem:
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.
Recordings of But Not To Me:
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
Stephen Crane is a great storyteller. He’s probably best known for his Civil War novel, “The Red Badge of Courage,” and he brings the same keen observer’s eye to his sharp poems. These songs paints scenes in which the narrator experiences something a shocking, reflects, and responds – with empathy, and calm swagger.
Crane Songs:
A man said to the universe
In the desert
I saw a man pursuing the horizon
Think as I think
Recordings of Crane Songs:
NOTES FROM UNDERGROUND
Instrumentation: solo piano
Duration: 20 minutes
Composed: 2014
Commissioned by: SubCulture Arts Underground, New York
Premiere: September 16, 2014 by Gregg Kallor at SubCulture NYC
*The Waiting premiere: January 7, 2016 by Gregg Kallor at SubCulture NYC
You know that great feeling of being invited into someone's living room, where your super gracious hosts make everything warm and comfortable and welcoming? That's how I feel every time I walk into SubCulture, the gorgeous underground NYC venue where I've had the honor of being Composer-In-Residence. I love that place, and the fantastic people who work there. This suite was commissioned by SubCulture, and I premiered it on the first anniversary of SubCulture's opening.
Notes from Underground:
Where You Are
Ballerina Gone Bad
The Waiting
The Good Kind of Crazy
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 meant to be evocative snapshots – moments of caffeinated bliss, embarrassing subway mishaps, the buzzing energy of a city driven by dynamic, thoughtful, talented, and slightly crazy people.
NOTE TO PIANISTS: The interplay of freedom and structure is something I think about a lot. I strive to write music that can breathe in performance – specific enough to say something, dynamic and flexible enough to allow a musician to make it her own. In my own playing, improvisation keeps me on my toes by focusing my ears and deepening my engagement with the music. In A Single Noon, improvisation is integrated throughout the suite as a way for pianists to stretch the musical fabric. 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.
A Single Noon:
A Single Noon
Broken Sentences
Night
Straphanger's Lurch
Found
Espresso Nirvana
Giants
Things to Come
Here Now
Recordings of A Single Noon:
BROKEN SENTENCES
88 pianos. 5 boroughs. 1 crazy idea.
ESPRESSO NIRVANA
an ode to caffeine
FOUND
live at SubCulture NY
A DRUNKEN MAN'S PRAISE OF SOBRIETY
Instrumentation: violin and piano
Duration: 5 minutes
Composed: 2012
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.
EXHILARATION - 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
“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)
Exhilaration - Emily Dickinson songs:
Exhilaration is the Breeze
It bloomed and dropt, a Single Noon -
Bee! I'm expecting you!
We Cover Thee - Sweet Face -
Wild Nights - Wild Nights!
What Inn is this
Still own thee - still thou art -
Exhilaration - is within -
Recordings of Exhilaration:
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
poem:
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.
Recordings of Little Elegy:
LULLABY
Instrumentation: voice and piano
Lyrics by: Herschel Garfein
Duration: 3 minutes
Composed: 2005
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.
Recordings of Lullaby:
