Gabriel Kahane | Roomful of Teeth
Fresh from their GRAMMY-winning album Rough Magic, Roomful of Teeth opens the evening with Caroline Shaw’s The Isle—a spellbinding work that blurs ancient myth with modern vocal invention. Gabriel Kahane follows with an intimate solo set, setting the stage for the centerpiece: Elevator Songs. Written and performed by Kahane, Elevator Songs is a poignant 35-minute tapestry of interwoven lives set in a hotel suspended across space and time. With Roomful of Teeth cast as the kaleidoscopic inhabitants, and contributions from Caroline Shaw/Eliza Bagg on violin and Jodie Landau on vibraphone, this work brims with wit, pathos, and sonic brilliance. A deeply human journey—comic, tragic, and wholly transporting—Elevator Songs is the culmination of years of collaboration between Kahane and Teeth, showcasing both the ensemble’s expressive range and Kahane’s singular narrative voice. A new album of the piece is currently in development, promising to bring this richly imagined world to listeners everywhere.
Karen Slack | Damien Geter: Justice Symphony
Karen frequently appears as the soloist for Damien Geter’s Justice Symphony for orchestra, soloist and SATB Choir.
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.
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.
African Queens
This special commissioning project produced by and featuring soprano Karen Slack takes the form of a full evening vocal recital of art song on the theme of African Queens to celebrate the history and legacy of seven fierce African Queens who were revered as rulers and warriors, though not widely heralded in the West.
American String Quartet with Stephanie Blythe
The American String Quartet and the American mezzo-soprano Stephanie Blythe team up to present a program featuring some of the great works for voice and string quartet: Respighi's Il Tramonto and four of Schubert's most well-known lieder, including Der Tod und das Mädchen, the quartet-version of which closes the program.