Daniel and Christine Kallman

NCFO Science Festival Chorus Songs by Daniel and Christine Kallman

Daniel Kallman Daniel Kallman's compositions for orchestra, winds, and choir
are widely published and performed across North America,
Europe and East Asia. His steady stream of commissions includes
music for worship, theater, dance, and the young musician.
Kallman has composed for the National Symphony Orchestra,
the Air Force Academy Band, the Hong Kong Children's Choir,
the Minnesota Orchestra, A Prairie Home Companion,
and a wide variety of vocal and instrumental ensembles.
The principal publishers of Kallman’s music are Morning Star
Music (church choir), Hal Leonard (choral), Shawnee/Mark
Foster Press (children’s choir), Boosey and Hawkes (winds and
choral), and Lauren Keiser Music (orchestral). All of Kallman’s
works are catalogued on his website.
Christine Kallman Christine Kallman is a playwright, lyricist, poet and musician.
Her work has been supported and produced by arts
organizations, theaters, schools, colleges and churches. She has
taught music and theater to young people in the classroom,
theater camp, and private studio. Among her works are full-
length plays, one-acts, and musicals, including Donata’s Gift, a
holiday musical based on the Italian legend of Old Befana. Her
most recent play, A Falling Out, is set at the time of the Cuban
Missile Crisis and was presented last spring in a staged reading
supported by the Southeastern Minnesota Arts Council through a
McKnight Artists Grant. In addition to writing song lyrics, Kallman
has received several commissions to write hymn texts.

 

  • Big Ice (world première, 2013: H2Oratorio and 2017: Singin' of the Rain)– Most of the world's fresh water is locked in the Antarctic ice sheet. Greenland's ice sheet is so massive (2.7 quintillion kg) that its gravity raises sea level at nearby Iceland by more than 7 meters. Melting of polar ice is accelerating due to global warming.
    [2017 performance audio / 2017 performance with slide show / demo]
    [2013 performance audio / 2013 performance video]
  • Earthrise (world premiere, 2019: One Whole Step) – Observations of our home planet made by astronauts orbiting Earth. The text for this song draws from comments made by astronauts who have experienced the view of Earth from outer space, including: Ron Garan (NASA), Jean-Francois Clervoy (France), Yuri Gagarin (Russian, First Human in Space), Karen Nyberg (NASA), Sandra Magnus (NASA), James Irwin (NASA, Apollo 15), and Mike Massimino (NASA).
    [performance audio / performance with slide showdemo]​
     
  • Earth’s Sweet Song (world premiere, 2015: A Little Light Music) – Earth’s temperature is determined by the balance between visible radiation from the sun and infrared that Earth radiates into space. Carbon dioxide profoundly affects that balance.
    [Broad performance audio / Peabody performance audio / performance video / demo]
  • Einstein-Rosen Bridge Strut (world premiere, 2019: One Whole Step) – Faster-than-light travel is impossible, but in 1935, Albert Einstein and his colleague Nathan Rosen used the Theory of General Relativity to propose the existence of "bridges" through space-time. These bridges connect two different points in space-time, theoretically creating a shortcut that could reduce travel time and distance. Such "wormholes" remain theoretical and have never been observed, but they're fun to dream about.
    [performance audio / performance with slide show / demo]​
  • In Praise of Emmy Noether (world premiere, 2016: Giants of Science) – Such a lush anthem as this is a fitting tribute to German-born mathematician Amalie Emmy Noether (1882 – 1935), whose contributions to abstract algebra and theoretical physics are unparalleled.  Accompaniment orchestrated and realized by Tim Maurice.
    [performance audio / performance video / demo]
  • In the Faraway Near of the Hidden Ear (world permiere, 2020: Vision) – 
    [performance audio / virtual performance video with lyrics / demo]​
  • Schrödinger's Cat (world premiere, 2016: Giants of Science) – Erwin Rudolf Josef Alexander Schrödinger (1887 - 1961) was a Nobel Prize-winning Austrian physicist whose wave equation revolutionized quantum mechanics, but it was his silly thought experiment, superimposing quantum uncertainty on a macroscopic feline, that has earned him the widest fame.
    [performance audio / performance video / demo]
  • Sky Dance (world premiere, 2015: A Little Light Music) – Auroras are caused when some charged particles of the solar wind escape the magnetosphere and enter the atmosphere, exciting the electrons of the oxygen and nitrogen molecules. As these electrons return to their normal state, they release light in the beautiful colors of the aurorae.
    [Broad performance audio / Peabody performance audio / performance video / demo]
  • Winter Odyssey (world première, 2013: H2Oratorio) – The water molecule, H2O, is bent 104.5º. When water freezes, the hydrogens of one molecule are attracted to the oxygens of two others, giving rise to fantastic, innumerable patterns of six-sided symmetry.
    [performance audio / performance video / demo]