Work Samples:

Opera: Frankenstein
Chamber opera: The Tell-Tale Heart
Chamber music (trio): A Fevered Dream
Solo piano: A Single Noon
Songs: Exhilaration — Emily Dickinson songs

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OPera: frankenstein

Premiere: Arizona Opera, 2023

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

8 singers, 21-piece chamber orchestra — two acts (130 minutes)

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s 200-year old novel, Frankenstein, continues to inspire storytellers — including this one — to breathe fresh life into the tale for their own generation because it speaks to something fundamental about human nature. Frankenstein is a horror story, but not in the way people often think of it; the real horror is the agony of a living being who is callously abandoned by the man who created him. Alienated and persecuted, this being endures terrible suffering because of the otherness to which he is reduced, and for which he is feared and reviled.

Frankenstein resonates so deeply because it holds up a mirror and asks us to consider our own humanity. Who’s the monster: a creature who is “other” — or the person who can’t see past this difference, and acts hatefully? My creation of this opera was driven by Shelley's exquisitely wrought plea to look deeper within ourselves to find our commonality, and to uphold our responsibility to one another. The Creature’s tragic existence is a stark reminder of the urgent need for empathy. I believe that telling this story — at this time, and in this way — is vital.

excerpt from “The Creature’s Tale”

Edward Parks, baritone; Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Jason Wirth, piano; Nicole Paiement, conductor

Elizabeth’s aria

Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Jason Wirth, piano; Nicole Paiement, conductor

The Creature’s aria

Edward Parks, baritone; Jason Wirth, piano; Nicole Paiement, conductor

archival dress rehearsal (full opera)

Chamber OPera: The Tell-Tale Heart

Premiere: The Crypt Sessions, NYC, 2016

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.

Melody Moore, soprano; Joshua Roman, cello; Gregg Kallor, piano

Dress rehearsal for 2018 performance in the Catacombs of Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY

Jennifer Johnson Cano, mezzo-soprano; Joshua Roman, cello; Gregg Kallor, piano

chamber music: A Fevered Dream

Premiere: SubCulture NYC, 2015

Miranda Cuckson, violin; Joshua Roman, cello; Gregg Kallor, piano

piano: A Single Noon

Premiere: Weill Hall at Carnegie Hall, NYC, 2011

A Single Noon is a musical tableau of life in New York City told through a seamless blend of composed music and improvisation. The suite evokes moments of caffeinated bliss, embarrassing subway mishaps, and the buzzing energy of a city driven by dynamic, thoughtful, talented, and slightly crazy people. 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.

2. Broken Sentences

This “Broken Sentences” video features eighty-eight artist-designed pianos that Sing For Hope temporarily placed in public spaces around NYC, where anyone could play them. I did. A lot.

Filmed and directed by Alan McIntyre Smith

5. Found

6. Espresso Nirvana

Caffeinated hijinks at a coffee shop on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.