Praised as “a gale-force” (Time Out New York) with a “dark-hued and sizable voice” (New York Times), mezzo-soprano Rachel Calloway is especially recognized as an interpreter of new and contemporary music. Highlights of the 2025-2026 season include debuts with the Arizona Friends of Chamber Music Series alongside The Amernet Quartet and with Brooklyn Art Song Society in Lembit Beecher’s After the Fires. She will also appear as a soloist in A Midsummer Night’s Dream with South Carolina Ballet, in recitals and residencies at Furman University and the University of Louisville, and in John Zorn’s Holy Visions on the Southern Exposure New Music Festival. She continues her work with Shir Ami: Song of our People, an ensemble dedicated to the preservation and performances of lost and unknown Jewish art music, in performance at the historic Temple Sinai in Sumter, SC. Calloway continues her development of new repertoire for voice and violin as Duo Cortona, an ensemble with her husband, violinist Ari Streisfeld.

Ms. Calloway is recognized as a leading interpreter of Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, which she has performed with Ensemble Signal at the Library of Congress, with the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players at the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center, with the Cortona Collective at the Akousticum in Ede (The Netherlands), and at Alice Tully Hall (NY). She has appeared as the alto soloist in major works of Gustav Mahler with The Orlando Philharmonic, The California Symphony, and The Omaha Symphony. Ms. Calloway has appeared in concert with the Los Angeles Philharmonic New Music Series, the New York Philharmonic, Berkeley Symphony, Ojai Festival, San Francisco Girls’ Chorus, BAM Next Wave Festival, Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival, Cal Performances, and Lincoln Center Festival. She is a frequent collaborator with today’s leading ensembles including the Amernet Quartet, JACK Quartet, and Third Coast Percussion. Ms. Calloway has appeared at the Kennedy Center under the auspices of Pro Musica Hebraica. On the operatic stage, she has appeared with Opera Philadelphia, Glimmerglass Opera, Central City Opera, Tulsa Opera, Opéra de Reims, Opéra de Lille, and Théâtre Louis-Jovet in Paris, France.

Ms. Calloway serves on the faculty of the University of South Carolina as Assistant Professor of Voice and Director of Spark: Music Leadership at Carolina. She joined the faculty of the Cortona Sessions for New Music (Italy & The Netherlands) in 2014, Summer Performing Arts with Juilliard in 2016, and the Chautauqua Opera Conservatory in 2023. She serves as co-director of The USC-Castleton Immersion Program alongside her colleague Dominic Armstrong and Dietlinde Turban Maazel. Ms. Calloway holds degrees from The Juilliard School (BM) and Manhattan School of Music (MM).