+++
date = "2016-10-13T11:13:00+01:00"
discipline = "Pianist, composer"
lastmod = "2016-10-13T11:13:00+01:00"
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primary_image_credit = "David White"
publishDate = "2016-10-13T11:13:00+01:00"
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slug = "gregg-kallor"
title = "Gregg Kallor"
website = "http://greggkallor.com/site/"
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+++

Gregg Kallor is a composer and pianist whose music fuses the classical and jazz traditions he loves into a new, deeply personal language. The New York Times writes: "At home in both jazz and classical forms, [Kallor] writes music of unaffected emotional directness. Leavened with flashes of oddball humor, his works succeed in drawing in the listener - not as consumer or worshipful celebrant, but in a spirit of easygoing camaraderie."

Kallor is the Composer-In-Residence at SubCulture in New York City, named one of Time Out New York's best new music venues. The first season of his residency featured world premieres of a solo piano suite; new songs with soprano Melody Moore, mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala and baritone Matthew Worth; and a piano trio with violinist Miranda Cuckson and cellist Joshua Roman.

Kallor joined an all-star roster of musicians, including Joyce DiDonato, Anthony Dean Griffey, Isabel Leonard, Susanna Phillips, Yo-Yo Ma, Anthony McGill, actors Sharon Stone and Ansel Elgort, and many more, for *An AIDS Quilt Songbook: Sing for Hope*. Kallor recorded two songs for the album, with Melody Moore - "One Child," which Kallor composed for this project - and Matthew Polezani. All profits from the sale of this album will go to amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research.

Kallor's music videos are "a visual feast for the eyes," writes Feast of Music: "Espresso Nirvana" (think caffeinated hijinks) and "Broken Sentences," which features the 88 artist-designed pianos that Sing For Hope placed in parks and public spaces all around NYC from June 1-15, 2013, where anyone could play them. Gregg did. A lot.

Kallor's solo recording, *A Single Noon*, is a musical tableau of life in New York City that evokes moments of caffeinated bliss, embarrassing subway mishaps, and the buzzing energy of a city driven by dynamic, thoughtful, talented, and slightly crazy people. Fred Hersch calls *A Single Noon* "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." Kallor premiered *A Single Noon* at Carnegie Hall in 2011.

Kallor's previous album, *Exhilaration - Dickinson and Yeats Songs*, features his song-settings of poems by Emily Dickinson, William Butler Yeats, and Christina Rossetti sung by mezzo-soprano Adriana Zabala. Opera News wrote: "Kallor knows how to make these words sing, and Zabala gives perfect flight to them."

The Abby Whiteside Foundation presented Kallor's Carnegie Hall debut in Weill Recital Hall in 2007. Harris Goldsmith wrote: "It took but a few impeccably shaped phrases to make it plain that Kallor is a formidably well-trained technician and a master of stylish proportion as well... This superb recital debut truly established a new, important voice in our musical annals."

Kallor (pronounced "KAY-ler") was born in Cleveland, Ohio and raised in West Hartford, Connecticut. He began improvising on the piano in his home as soon as he could walk over to it, began taking classical piano lessons when he was six, and added jazz lessons a few years later. He graduated from Tufts University with a degree in American Studies. Kallor lives in New York City, where he makes excellent use of his MetroCard.
