Family Records » Gabriel Kahane

Gabriel Kahane

What We Say: Gabriel Kahane has performed and recorded with a catholic assortment of artists ranging from Rufus Wainwright, Chris Thile, and Sufjan Stevens to Hilary Hahn and Thomas Quasthoff. In addition to performing extensively as a singer-songwriter, Gabriel is in demand as a composer of concert and theater works, with upcoming commissions for the Public Theater in New York and the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. 2009 witnesses the premiere of three concert works: For the Union Dead, a chamber song cycle on poems by Robert Lowell; Django: Tiny Variations on a Big Dog, a solo piano piece to be premiered in April at Lincoln Center by Jeffrey Kahane, (Gabriel’s father); and the Piano Sonata, written for Natasha Paremski, to be premiered in the spring. Kahane recently appeared with Rufus Wainwright on Elvis Costello’s Spectacle on the Sundance Channel; the episode will air in early 2009. He lives in Brooklyn with an ever-expanding library of obscure Catalan texts and collection of antique teas.

What Others Say:

[T]here is nobody else within the pop-music sphere making music even remotely as sophisticated as what you’ll hear on Gabriel Kahane. This is music for the ears, the intellect and the soul, and an auspicious debut LP from one of the most prodigious talents we’ve got. — Prefix Magazine

Gabriel Kahane is an NPR programmer’s wet dream. — Pitchfork

Where few listeners these days can actually hear the song of themselves in Schubert lieder, Kahane is telling us the simple and tragic stories of a life we can comprehend using just as much poetry.” — NewMusicBox

“The impressive young singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane describes himself as ‘the bastard child of Alban Berg and Rufus Wainwright,’ a shotgun wedding he pulls off with his piano-bar poetry and adventurous compositions.” –Time Out New York

The instrumental parts, at times, might be purely classical compositions all by themselves, thoughtful, and above all wrought — carefully balanced, with contrasting melodies coexisting with each other, along with complex rhythms, and little strains of music that register like sharp, sure thoughts, or like images in a carefully crafted short story…

[T]here’s no denying the talent involved, or the very deep feeling, or the blend of styles that, at its best, seems uncanny. I’ve seen classical-music professionals go into ecstasies when Mr. Kahane sings these songs live, and the young classical musicians who play with him are completely devoted…. Something really good is starting to happen here, and it’s well worth checking out. — Wall Street Journal

Links :: Artist Site | Myspace

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