A sought-after composer of concert works, Gabriel will appear in the 2022/2023 season with the St. Louis Symphony, the Cincinnati Symphony, the Virginia Symphony, and the San Francisco Symphony, which will present emergency shelter intake form, Kahane’s 2018 oratorio exploring inequality through the lens of housing issues. He returns this fall to the Oregon Symphony, where he has served as Creative Chair since 2018, as soloist in his new song cycle The Right to Be Forgotten, a further exploration—begun with Magnificent Bird—of the increasingly fraught relationship between technology and humanity.

Gabriel Kahane’s fifth LP, Magnificent Bird (Nonesuch Records), brings to life a trunk of songs written in self-imposed isolation—a full year off the internet—with the help of a dozen-and-a-half colleagues, including Andrew Bird, Chris Thile, Sylvan Esso’s Amelia Meath, and Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Caroline Shaw. The resulting album, hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a gorgeous, intimate collection of ten musical snapshots,” finds the songwriter shuttling between the quotidian mundane and a series of overlapping national and global crises: a portrait of life in the roiling chaos of the 21st century.

Previously, the day after the 2016 presidential election, Gabriel boarded a train at Penn Station and traveled 9,980 miles around the continental U.S., talking to dozens of strangers in an attempt to better understand his country and fellow citizens. The resulting album, Book of Travelers (Nonesuch Records) – hailed by Rolling Stone as “a stunning portrait of a singular moment in America” – is at once a prayer for empathy and reconciliation, as well as an unflinching examination of the complex and often troubled history of the United States.

Gabriel made his major label debut with The Ambassador (Sony Masterworks), a meditation on the underbelly of Los Angeles seen through the lens of ten street addresses: one song per address. The album was recognized for its “rapturous uneasiness” by The New York Times, and as “one of the year’s very best” by Rolling Stone. Named for the demolished hotel that housed early Academy Awards ceremonies and where Bobby Kennedy was assassinated, The Ambassador is a song cycle based on life in Los Angeles from the 1920′s to the dystopian future. Earlier albums have included The Fiction Issue with My Brightest Diamond and Brooklyn Rider, Crane Palimpsest with The Knights, and his widely-admired song cycle Craigslistlieder.

Gabriel has written pieces about his work, political activism, and commentary on modern society for The New Yorker and The New York Times.

In his 2023-24 season, Kahane embarks on a new collaborative commissioning project with the Attacca Quartet, Pekka Kuusisto, and Roomful of Teeth as part of a two year initiative with San Francisco Performances, with additional performances scheduled around the U.S. and Europe. Season highlights include the European premiere of emergency shelter intake form in London with the BBC Concert Orchestra, duo recitals with Jeffrey Kahane, a conducting appearance with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the New York premiere of his piano concerto Heirloom by Jeffrey Kahane and The Knights. Venues include UCLA’s Nimoy Theater, Seattle’s Meany Center, and New York’s 92NY.

Kahane’s discography also includes 2014’s The Ambassador, which received an acclaimed staging at BAM, directed by Tony and Olivier Award-winner John Tiffany; an album of chamber music, The Fiction Issue, with the string quartet Brooklyn Rider and vocalist/composer Shara Nova; a recording with The Knights of his orchestral song cycle Crane Palimpsest; as well as the original cast album for February House.

A frequent collaborator across a range of musical communities, Gabriel has worked with an array of artists including Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Phoebe Bridgers, Caroline Shaw, and Chris Thile. After nearly two decades in Brooklyn, Kahane relocated with his family to Portland, Oregon, in March of 2020. Their freakishly self-possessed cat, Roscoe Greebletron Jones III, when not under investigation for securities fraud, continues his fruitless attempts to monetize his Instagram account.

December 2023 – Please do not edit without permission.