School of Music

Elisabeth Marshall

Elisabeth Marshall Kallembach, D.M.
Assistant Professor, Voice and Choral
Browne 206
Email: E-Marshall3@wiu.edu
Telephone: (309) 298-1544

Soprano Elisabeth Marshall has been praised for her “sweetly focused” (Portland Press Herald), “crystal” (Seattle Sunbreak), “smooth and artistic” (Chicago Stage Standard), “radiant...sensuous” (OPERA NEWS) deliveries of solo vocal music from the Renaissance to the 21st-century. A two-time winner in The American Prize’s Art Song and Oratorio division, including the Special Citation for “Outstanding Performance of Music before 1800”, she is in demand as a concert soloist with highlights including Messiah with the Cincinnati Symphony and at Chicago Symphony Center (Apollo Chorus), J.S.Bach’s Mattäuspassion with Helmuth Rilling and Handel’s Hercules with Lars Ulrik Mortensen at the Oregon Bach Festival, and numerous works of J.S. Bach with ensembles across the country. A passionate performer and advocate of art song, she has specialized particularly in Lieder of the German Classical and Romantic composers, as well as contemporary American song, including several world premieres, with organizations across the country including the Brooklyn Art Song Society, Cincinnati Song Initiative, the Belvedere Series (Richmond, VA), and Gallery Concerts (Seattle). She is married to Chicago-based composer James Kallembach and has given the world premieres of many songs in his catalogue, and has worked closely with composers such as Libby Larsen, Scott Wheeler, and the late Richard Hundley. With musical roots steeped in choral traditions, Dr. Marshall also performs nationally as a professional ensemble singer on the rosters of Handel & Haydn Society, The Thirteen, Grant Park Music Festival, Emmanuel Music (Boston), and previously with the Carmel Bach Festival, Oregon Bach Festival, the Lorelei Ensemble, and the London Philharmonia Chorus, under the batons of conductors such as Masaaki Suzuki, Harry Christophers, Matthew Halls, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Craig Hella Johnson, and Leonard Slatkin. On the opera stage she has been hailed for her “precision” and “technical skill” (Fringe Opera) as the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute in London (U.K.), with other roles including Frasquita (Carmen), Rosalinde (Die Fledermaus), Elisetta (Il matrimonio segreto), and Rosabella (The Most Happy Fella). Dr. Marshall was a 2006 Fulbright grant recipient studying “Opera Traditions and Trends” and voice with Dr. Jeanette Favaro-Reuter at the Hochschule für Musik & Theater “Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy” in Leipzig, Germany. There, she fell in love with the music of J.S. Bach, which then became a central focus of her repertoire. She holds a Doctorate in Music from the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, where her principal teacher was legendary operatic soprano Carol Vaness, and has coached with celebrated pianists Martin Katz and Roger Vignoles, and internationally renowned singers Håkan Hagagård, Roberta Alexander, and Suzanne Murphy. Dr. Marshall has previously served on the faculties of the Ithaca College School of Music, Theater, and Dance, and the University of Southern Maine Osher School of Music. FMI: www.elisabethmarshall.com