Talent & Phoenix
“Talent & Phoenix” is a large-scale song cycle (40-50 minutes) that will examine recent, catastrophic wildfires in Oregon from a number of lenses.
Gabriel’s Guide to the 48 States
Gabriel's Guide to the 48 States is a musical journey through America, blending Gabriel Kahane's music with historical texts from the 1930s American Guide Series. This 40-minute song cycle takes audiences on a road trip from Southern California to New York City.
Note to a Friend | Attacca Quartet & Theo Bleckmann
In this 60-minute chamber opera, commissioned by the Japan Society, Pulitzer Prize-winning composer David Lang combines and reimagines three texts by iconic Japanese novelist Ryunosuke Akutagawa. The result is a stunning and haunting monodrama, note to a friend, addressing our eternal human fascinations with death, love, family and suicide.
Photo credit: Lynne Harty
Anthony McGill, Demarre McGill, Titus Underwood, & Andrew Brady | Jasmine Barnes Commission
A new kind of commission project - at its core will be the musical commission of a new Concertante - a 15-20 min concerto for four brilliant and trailblazing principals of major US orchestras + chamber orchestra: Titus Underwood, Anthony McGill, Demarre McGill, and Andrew Brady. The work will be written by Jasmine Barnes and is meant to be a dynamic new addition to the repertoire, celebrating these unique artists and tailored to their artistry.
Miró Quartet & Karen Slack | Tamar-kali Commission
New work by acclaimed concert and film composer Tamar-kali (Mudbound) will feature soprano Karen Slack and the Miró Quartet, setting texts centered in the inspirational poetry of women of the Harlem Renaissance. Tamar-kali hopes to pay homage to the music and poetry of that time, bringing to the fore her own unique voice as a contemporary composer whose work is grounded across contemporary pop, classical and film music genres.
Photo credit: Matt Murphy
Gabriel Kahane | Attacca Quartet
I’ve known Nathan Schram of Attacca Quartet for almost a decade; he performed in the production of The Ambassador at BAM, and is a deeply soulful musician and person.
Photo credit: David Goddard
Parker Quartet | Anthony Cheung commission with Fleur Barron
The Parker Quartet and mezzo-soprano Fleur Barron will be working with composer Anthony Cheung on a commission for string quartet and mezzo-soprano which will be an 18- 20 min piece around the theme of Asian representation.
Gabriel Kahane | Sandbox Percussion
Sandbox Percussion is the newest addition to my musical community. We’ve admired each other from afar for a while, and they have a particular—and, to me, appealing—interest in moving the percussion quartet beyond the spectacle of highly “gridded” music.
Photo credit: Noah Stern Weber
Gabriel Kahane & Pekka Kuusisto | Council
After nearly a decade of musical friendship, it seems only fitting that the iconic Finnish musician Pekka Kuusisto and cult American singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane have formalized their collaboration under the moniker ‘Council.’ Now, they present an evening of intimate and sonically varied songs & chamber music, written during several writing retreats in Northern Karelia and Portland, Oregon.
Photo credit: Sam Gehrke
Gabriel Kahane | Roomful of Teeth
Roomful of Teeth and I have been orbiting each other for the better part of a decade, but it wasn’t until this winter that they asked if I would write a new work for them.
Parker Quartet | Beethoven Project
The 2022-23 season marked the Parker Quartet’s 20th anniversary. To celebrate, the Parkers embarked on The Beethoven Project, a multifaceted project centering around performances of the complete Beethoven quartet cycle, and includes newly commissioned encores for each of the Beethoven cycle concerts. Bringing in fresh and diverse voices of today and continuing the lineage of creation that Beethoven himself was so much a part of.
Pacifica Quartet & Karen Slack | James Lee III: A Double Standard
The Pacifica Quartet and soprano Karen Slack are offering a new song cycle by James Lee III commissioned by Carnegie Hall, Chamber Music Detroit, and the Shriver Hall Concert Series. “A Double Standard” is based on the poem of the same name by the prolific Baltimore poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, who was a free black woman from Baltimore in the 19th century.
Pacifica Quartet | James Lee III New Work for Children’s Choir and String Quartet
The Pacifica Quartet teams up with James Lee III on a new 10-minute work for children’s choir and string quartet. James is going to be centering the work around the theme of hunger and food insecurity with text coming from a poem called “Pitch In” by Sylvia Dianne Beverly.
Sphinx Virtuosi | Songs for Our Times
Sphinx Virtuosi’s Debut Album
Out Digitally on Deutsche Grammophon
This debut album represents the rich history of the Sphinx Organization and the vibrant future of classical music by centering the artistry of extraordinary composers and artistic visionaries of color.
Shanghai Quartet | Marcos Balter Commission with Anthony Roth Costanzo
The Shanghai Quartet and countertenor Anthony Roth Costanzo join forces in a new song cycle from Marcos Balter.
Photo credit: Matthew Placek
Karen Slack | Of Thee I Sing!
Of Thee I Sing! Songs of Love and Justice is a critically acclaimed recital created by Karen Slack in the late Summer of 2020 during the height of the pandemic and just after the murder of George Floyd. The center of this moving program is the raw and powerful yet hopeful Langston Hughes poem, The Kids Who Die (1938), and a commissioned setting of that riveting text by American composer Scott Gendel.
Karen Slack | Gladys Bentley Project
Karen is a skilled storyteller, a champion for new work, and a thoughtful producer, and she is developing a project to honor the life of the iconic Harlem Renaissance performer Gladys Bentley, putting Black Queer voices front and center while exploring themes of Black love, identity, and artistry through the lens of the Harlem Renaissance.
Gabriel Kahane | emergency shelter intake form
Homelessness, eviction, and the lack of affordable housing are of great concern to many. The release of Matthew Desmond’s Evicted shed further light on the eviction crisis and was one of the inspirations for composer Gabriel Kahane’s emergency shelter intake form.
James Lee III: Principal Brothers
This new program highlights Demarre McGill, Titus Underwood, Anthony McGill, and Bryan Young — four Black artists who are orchestral principals and inspirational leaders in the field.
Gabriel Kahane & Anthony McGill | Rhapsody
The history of Blacks and Jews in America is, and always has been, complex and multivalent. Stories of solidarity in labor movements in the 1930s and ‘40s, as well as in the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s, are well-documented. Sadly, there is also a rich history of anti-Black racism in Jewish communities, and antisemitism in Black communities.