Kalea originated in 2018 with three friends improvising at home and building a strong musical relationship. Flautist Katie Macdonald, violinist Beatriz Rola and cellist Anna Litvinenko came from classical backgrounds but have also expanded their practices to other genres. Improvisation has always been a foundation in their process, often using poetry, visual art, film and dance as an impetus to create new works that aim to blur the boundaries between classical and experimental sound worlds.

Kalea has worked extensively with poetry and art. In 2018 and 2019, they collaborated with poet Andrew Mitchell and artist Mary Kuper, creating multi-media performances based on Mitchell’s long narrative poems Villa Diodati on the story of Frankenstein and Written in Water on the life and work of John Keats. These were performed at The British Library and at the Keats-Shelley House in London and Rome. Their newest project Playing with Words was influenced by this collaboration, in addition to Julian Rosefeldt’s Manifesto. This work presents itself as a contemporary musical response to poetry throughout history, and includes live drawing by emerging British artist Phoebe Pryor.