CHORDLESS is an award-winning voice and piano duo breathing life into new and forgotten music. Sara LeMesh, soprano, and Allegra Chapman, piano, are passionate about exploring overlooked composers and contemporary music, creating innovative experiences for audiences to discover new music. They seek to expand the canon of vocal/piano music to include these incredible works that deserve to be heard and loved.

Romanian-American soprano Sara LeMesh, praised by San Francisco Classical Voice for her "lush tone, exceptional high-register clarity, dramatic breadth, and fearless command," is equally at home on the opera stage and in the concert hall. An avid chamber musician, she is comfortable in a wide variety of genres and repertoire, and is also a devoted advocate of contemporary music. 

Garnering praise at international vocal competitions, Ms. LeMesh’s success includes a string of First Prize victories: at the PARTNERS for the Arts, Inc. National Opera Competition; the Lyndon Woodside Oratorio-Solo Competition at Carnegie Hall; and the Federation of the Art Song Fellowship Competition with pianist Allegra Chapman. She was also awarded Third Prize at the Zenith Opera Competition in Berlin and the Josep Palet International Singing Competition in Martorell, Spain.

During the 2025-26 season, Ms. LeMesh joins Annapolis Opera to perform the role of Zerlina in Mozart’s Don Giovanni and will debut Adele in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus (Boheme Opera NJ). She also joins the Brooklyn Art Song Society (BASS) to perform in Ned Rorem’s Evidence of Things Not Seen in the spring of 2026. As a frequent regular guest artist with the group, she most recently sang Schubert’s Shepherd on the Rock at the Lake George Music Festival. In May 2026, Ms. LeMesh will debut with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra as the soprano soloist in Orff’s Carmina Burana, conducted by JoAnn Falletta. 

In summer 2025, Ms. LeMesh debuted as Contessa in Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, The Rose in Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince, and Antonia in Mitch Leigh’s Man of La Mancha with Opera North in Lebanon, NH. Throughout the 2024-25 season, she joined Florentine Opera as a Baumgartner Studio Artist, performing Galatea in Handel’s Acis and Galatea, Frasquita in Carmen, Kate Pinkerton in Madama Butterfly, and Luigia in Donizetti’s Viva la mamma!.

Operatic highlights of past seasons include Marie in Donizetti’s La fille du régiment with the Opera Company of Middlebury (VT); Isabel Perón in Carlos Franzetti’s Corpus Evita with West Bay Opera; and Narcissa in Haydn’s Jupiter’s Journey to Earth with The Little Opera Theatre of New York. While a Resident Artist at Opera Naples, she sang the roles of Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, Frasquita in Carmen, and Woman #1 in Robert Xavier Rodriguez’s Frida under the baton of Ramón Tebar. 

Recent accomplishments on the concert stage include Schubert’s Mass in C Major and Vivaldi’s Magnificat with the New England Symphonic Ensemble at Carnegie Hall and the soprano solo in Max Richter’s Woolf Works with the American Ballet Theatre at the Metropolitan Opera House. She also joined the Brooklyn Art Song Society in the fall of 2024 to perform Songs of Lament and Praise by Gilda Lyons, and she partnered with Music For Food to perform Schoenberg’s Das Buch der hängenden Gärten at the New England Conservatory with pianist Seth Knopp.

A devoted recitalist and interpreter of concert works, she has performed throughout the United States and Europe at venues and festivals that include the Morgan Library & Museum, Aspen Music Festival, Tanglewood Music Center, Music Academy of the West, Fall Island Vocal Arts Seminar, American Bach Soloists Academy, the YellowBarn summer chamber music festival, and International Summer Academy of the Mozarteum Salzburg, where she worked closely with noted Italian bass-baritone Ruggero Raimondi. While at Tanglewood, she was a soloist in Berlioz’s Les nuits d'été under the baton of Stéphane Denève and co-premiered Folk Songs by Bernard Rands.  

Pianist Allegra Chapman is an omnivorous soloist, chamber musician, and curator with a wide-ranging repertoire of music from Bach to Ligeti and a passion for connecting audiences with historically overlooked and living composers.

Allegra’s performances have been described as “fervid but impeccably controlled” by the San Francisco Chronicle and “brilliant” by the San Francisco Classical Voice. A graduate of The Juilliard School and Bard Conservatory of Music, she is currently a member of Left Coast Chamber Ensemble, San Francisco Contemporary Music Players, and Chordless duo with soprano Sara LeMesh.

Recently, Chordless won First Prize in the Federation of the Art Song Fellowship Competition in New York and gave recitals at the Zimmerli Art Museum of Rutgers University and the San Francisco Contemporary Jewish Museum where they held a residency.

Performance highlights include Beethoven’s Triple Concerto with Delphi Trio and the San Jose Chamber Orchestra; the world premiere of Grammy-nominated composer Clarice Assad’s new triple concerto, A Story of Mermaids, also with Delphi Trio and the San Jose Chamber Orchestra; and concerts at Festival Napa Valley, San Jose Chamber Music Society, and the National Arts Club in New York City. In 2020, her music video with Chordless, The Night in Silence, won the “Best Music Video” award at the 2020 Tokyo International Short Film Festival and screened at four other film festivals.

Allegra has performed throughout the United States, Europe, and China at venues including Alice Tully Hall, the Dame Myra Hess Memorial Concert Series, the Bard Music Festival, Valley of the Moon Music Festival, the Liszt Ferenc Memorial Museum, and Xi'an Concert Hall. A passionate chamber musician and new music advocate, she has collaborated with members of the Eusebius, Orion, and Telegraph String Quartets and worked with celebrated American composers including Gabriella Smith, Joan Tower, Melinda Wagner, and Charles Wuorinen. From 2020-2023, Allegra was the pianist of the Delphi Trio with violinist Liana Bérubé and cellist Tanya Tomkins.

As a curator, Allegra was the founding co-artistic director and executive director of the critically acclaimed festival Bard Music West from 2017-2020, a San Francisco-based branch of the Bard Music Festival. Described as “stunning and moving” by the San Francisco Classical Voice and as “a brilliant San Francisco Festival” by the San Francisco Chronicle, Bard Music West’s festivals each explored the world of a composer from the past 100 years. In its four years, Bard West presented three festivals that dove deep into the music, life, and influences of composers Grazyna Bacewicz, Henry Cowell, and György Ligeti. It also presented an emerging composers concert series, working with composers Danny Clay and Gabriella Smith. In total, Bard West presented over 70 world-class artists from around the globe, commissioned three new multi-disciplinary works, and performed over 100 pieces of music, including many that had never been previously recorded.

Allegra received her Master of Music from The Juilliard School and graduated in the inaugural class of the Bard College Conservatory of Music with undergraduate degrees in History and Piano Performance. Allegra owes much to her many wonderful teachers who have included Jeremy Denk, Seymour Lipkin, Julian Martin, and Peter Serkin. She is currently on faculty at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music’s Pre-College division. She makes her home in San Francisco with her husband, human baby, canine baby, and an ever-growing library of over 800 books.