Our performances
kallisti was established in 2009; our performances and repertoire have been as singular and eclectic as the ever-changing musical landscape of UC San Diego. Our community of singers have performed numerous premieres in chamber opera and concert music and have been featured with the La Jolla Symphony and Chorus (Berio: Sinfonia) on the Green Umbrella Series at the Los Angeles Philhamonic (Reich: Music for 18) and in collaboration with San Diego Symphony's It's About Time Festival at Copley Symphony Hall. kallisti chamber operas have brought rarely heard masterworks and world premieres to the San Diego community, including Anthony Davis’ Lear on the Second Floor, Lei Liang’s Inheritance and the San Diego premiere of Viktor Ullman's 1943 chamber opera Der Kaiser von Atlantis (2012) in a critically acclaimed production that has been viewed over 13,000 times worldwide on Vimeo.
2022 Dryad Vocal chamber music by Crumb, von Zieritz, Saariaho, Henze and featuring the world premiere of Dryad, a forty minute work for voices and ensemble, written by UC San Diego DMA candidate in composition, Alex Taylor.
2021 I, too am America An online concert featuring music by Black composers Anthony Davis, H. Leslie Adams, Margaret Bonds, Undine Smith Moore Julia Perry and Florence B. Price.
2019 Seeking Antonia - a constructed opera on a hidden life Antonia Bembo (1640-1720) was a singer and composer whose remarkable life and work has been largely overlooked. Our production included several of her solo cantatas, vocal duets and music for four voices and ensemble.
2018 Inheritance: A Chamber Opera Co-presented by ArtPower and UC San Diego Department of Music. With music by Lei Liang, Inheritance is the story of Sarah Winchester, heiress to the Winchester rifle fortune, and her complex relationship to her family’s legacy. With the generous support of the Creative Capital Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Phyllis and Dan Epstein, Dr. Julia Falk and Robert and Catherine Palmer. Recorded for Albany Records.
2018 Queen of the Ether Music for women’s voices by Elizabeth Angot, Ana Sokolovic, Katharina Rosenberger, and Karin Rehnquist.
Performances at UABC Ensenada and UC San Diego.
2018 San Diego Symphony: It’s About Time Festival Steve Reich Music for Mallet Instruments, Voices and Organ
2017 La Voix Humaine/Poulenc Dryer/Drawer Tom Johnson In an evening of works for voice and piano, Johnson’s ebullient and rarely heard minimalist operas was paired with Poulenc’s masterpiece about a disintegrating love affair.
La Voix Humaine (2017)
Dryer (2017)
2017 Berio - Sinfonia with the La Jolla Symphony, Steven Schick conductor
Sinfonia (Symphony) is an exuberant and unexpected post-serial classical work, with texts by Lévi-Strauss, Beckett, Mahler and its second movement, O King, an hommage to the great Martin Luther King.
2016 Noon at Dusk* The world premiere of a chamber opera composed by American composer Stephen Lewis, a graduate of UC San Diego’s renowned program in composition.
2016 The Voice Machine* A co-collaboration with Stanford University, new works by Constantine Baca, Alexandra Hay, Jessie Marino and Caroline Louise Miller. Performances at UC San Diego and Stanford University.
Noon at Dusk* (2016)
The Threepenny Opera (2015)
2015 The Threepenny Opera
A collboration between Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, The Threepenny Opera had its premiere in Berlin, Germany in 1928. Its source material is drawn from John Gay's The Beggar's Opera, an English ballad opera written two centuries early. Our production used the translation of Marc Blitzstein, (himself a distinguished composer of works of music theater) .
2014 Sino alla morte A "constructed opera" which juxtaposed music by two Italian composers: Barbara Strozzi (1619-1677) and Salvatore Sciarrino (1947-). Each has written vocal music of profound expressivity and intense beauty. Sciarrino's rarely performed vocal sextet "Le donne di Trachis" (1980) is the cornerstone of the evening, framed by works for solo voice and vocal ensemble by Strozzi.
Sino alla morte (2014)
2014 Piccola musica notturna Vocal chamber music by Luigi Dallapiccola and Niccolo Castiglioni with chamber music by Aldo Clementi and a new work by UC San Diego candidate in Composition Kyle Rowan.
2013 Anthony Davis: Lear on the Second Floor*
Lear on the Second Floor (2013) Anthony Davis **
With music by Pulitzer Prize winning composer Anthony Davis and text by Allan Havis, Lear on the Second Floor is a retelling of Shakespeare’s iconic tale. Nora Lear, neuroscientist with early onset dementia, struggles to maintain her grip on reality; as her three daughters argue, Nora seeks refuge in the memory, with her late husband Mortimer. Watch the performance here on UCSD-TV.
Der Kaiser von Atlantis (2012)
Der Kaiser von Atlantis is a miracle and a mystery. Viktor Ullmann composed the work in 1943, while interred in Terezin. It tells the story of an omnipotent and deranged Kaiser, who could only be unseated by the suspension of the natural order of life and death. There are also moments of heart-stopping beauty and messages of hope. Our production was a San Diego Premiere, and earned critical acclaim. Watch it on VIMEO.
2012 The Pierrot Project Celebrating the centenary of Schoenberg's masterwork alongside four companion pieces: Aaron Helgeson: Poems of sheer nothingness* /Yeung Ping Chen: Star and Moon, Cloud and You * Andrew Allen: JPOPERA, MEGAMIX * / Paul Hembree: Light from Outside* /Arnold Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire (1912)
2012 Steve Reich: Music for 18 Musicians (1974-76) Green Umbrella Series, Los Angeles Philharmonic
Socrate, 2011
2011 "A sound, vast and summerlike..." (2011) A music-theater project by Susan Narucki and Aleck Karis featured music of Morton Feldman and Erik Satie, including a staged performance of Socrate.
2011 Instant Operas Jeffrey Treviño: Orbiting* Kyle Rowan The Eighth Daughter * Ryan Welsh: Mother Goose Mad Lib * Andrew Allen/Megan Welsh: Muumuucachuu* Carolyn Chen: The Little Mermaid*
2010 Pascal Dusapin: To Be Sung (1994) **
Our first production in a version for four sopranos, speaker and chamber ensemble, conducted by Jullian Pellicano.
World Premiere* San Diego Premiere**
