As a member of the ELISION Ensemble Deborah has performed at the Agora Festival Paris, Ars Musica, MaerzMusik, Pro Musica Nova, Zürcher Theaterspektakel, BBC Maida Vale studios, the Hebbel Theater of Berlin, Saitama Arts Centre Japan as well as at all of the major Australian festivals. Composers who have written specifically for her voice in major works, opera and installation include Liza Lim (Yuè Lìng Jié), Richard Barrett (Opening of the Mouth and Dark Matter), Chris Dench (ik(s)land[s] and the blinding access of the grace of flesh) and John Rodgers (TULP, the body public).
Kayser has premiered and has been a crucial performer for many chamber works by Australian and overseas composers, including Helen Gifford, Chaya Czernowin, David Young, Volker Heyn, Michael Finnissy, Jason Eckardt, Richard Vella and Michael Smetanin. She has worked with the companies Chambermade, Theatreworks, and Aphids.
Kayser performs in areas as diverse as ancient Byzantine chant, French and German baroque song, contemporary music, both scored and improvised, opera and mixed-media work. As a member of Jouissance, she has performed radical interpretations of Byzantine and medieval chant, including the works of Hildegard of Bingen, Kassia, Romanos Melodos and Peter Abelard. She has also toured Japan, Belgium, France and Estonia. More recently she performed as a soloist in the Festival d’automne of Paris giving the premiere of Liza Lim’s The Quickening.
As a soprano, Deborah is a major exponent and leader of contemporary Australian vocal practice.
The beautiful, tranquil and almost contemplative moments, are retained for the Moon-Goddess Chang-O performed by the soprano Deborah Kayser, who can however also transform herself into a vampiric spirit-being.
—Thomas Meyer, Zürcher Tages-Anzeiger 2002
...the opportunity to hear Kayser’s phenomenal voice. Her instrument should be promoted as a national treasure for its flexibility is so great that one would be hard pressed to find too many others like it in Australia.
—Joel Crotty, The Age Melbourne 2001
The entrancing, luminous sound produced by soprano Deborah Kayser; surely one of this country’s most musical performers of new music.
—Robert Davidson, Real Time 1998