Instrumentation: orchestra (2/2/2/2 w/doublings • 2/2/1/1/1 • Harp/Timp./2 Perc. • Strings)
Duration: 20 minutes
Composed: 2025
This orchestral suite is a wordless tour through the main musical themes of my opera, Frankenstein. It includes excerpts from several arias and duets, and some pivotal scenes in which the orchestra carries the story — a kind of greatest hits.
Instrumentation: piano duet (4 hands, 1 piano)
Duration: 4 minutes
Composed: 2020
I wrote this duet in celebration of my first wedding anniversary — which my wife, Dasha Koltunyuk, and I celebrated during the early months of the COVID-19 lockdown. The silver lining of our enforced isolation during the pandemic was the precious time we were able to spend with each other.
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, Elizabeth writes the forcibly calm letter that she will actually send to Victor.
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.
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. 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.
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)
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
Instrumentation: voice and piano
Lyrics by: Sara Cooper
Duration: 4 minutes
Composed: 2014
Commissioned by: Sing For Hope
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.
"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
4 songs
9 songs
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.
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
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.
Please consider buying this exquisite collection of Clementine’s poems (including A Prayer) from your local bookstore. Otherwise, get it on Amazon:
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
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.
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.
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
Song is a love letter at life’s end'; there’s no fear or regret, only words of comfort for the one who remains.
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.
2 songs
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
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.
7 songs
Instrumentation: piano duet (4 hands, 1 piano)
Duration: 5 minutes
Composed: 2019
My wife, Dasha Koltunyuk, and I played this celebratory piece together at our wedding; it was our first dance as a married couple.
“Kallor achieved a perfect balance of text and music... galvanized into a singular compositional voice.”
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
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.
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
“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
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
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
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
“SIMULTANEOUSLY MACABRE AND, AT MOMENTS, DARKLY HUMOROUS... A GRAND TOUR DE FORCE”
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
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
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
"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
"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 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
"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
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.
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.
violin and piano
5 movements
violin, cello, and piano
