a reliable four-part cocktail
an early autumn dispatch pertaining to the coming month's activity
Dear reader, please accept my sincerest apologies for doing such a lousy job of staying in touch. Excuses abound: travel, deadlines, a sequence of non-life-threatening pediatric illnesses; more travel, more deadlines, the nightly whack-a-mole ritual of restoring some sense of order to our living room after its being visited by a twenty-one-month-old tornado. (Aside: parenting toddlers is a reliable four-part cocktail: joy, exasperation, exhaustion, despair.) I’ve got all sorts of fragments of essays in progress, and promise that I’ll get back to publishing on a schedule as the season begins. In the meantime, here’s some news about what’s on tap.
I. So much is happening in Portland!
At the end of this month, the Oregon Symphony begins its 2023/2024 season just as our new CEO, Isaac Thompson, begins his tenure. While it’s bittersweet to see Scott Showalter step down after a decade of intrepid leadership, Isaac’s arrival is cause for celebration. He comes to us from the New York Philharmonic, where he served most recently as Managing Director, having been hired a few years earlier as VP for Artistic Planning. While I may be a tad biased (Isaac is a good friend of mine), I believe Mr. Thompson to be a true visionary, and I’m so looking forward to working with him as I enter my fourth year as Creative Chair for the OSO. Speaking of which…
The subscription season kicks off September 30-October 2 with a program anchored by Mahler’s First Symphony. I was tasked with writing an overture of sorts, and came up with Judith, an eight-minute work whose musical materials are derived from a song called “Last Dance,” from my 2011 album Where are the Arms. (Rooting the piece in existing song themes was not an accident: given the Mahler symphony’s close relationship to his earlier song cycle Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen, I wanted to draw out the connection between song & orchestral music.) These concerts also feature the wonderful Benjamin Beilman in works by Saint-Saëns and Ravel; I’ll be on hand for pre-concert talks preceding each of the performances. It’d be lovely to see you there.
A week later, on October 6, the freshly expanded Open Music series, whose programming is the centerpiece of my work for the OSO, begins at the Reser Center with Stay On It, a concert which offers a condensed retrospective/sampler of American Minimalism and its descendants. Works for large ensemble and string orchestra are juxtaposed with solo pieces (with and without electronics), all culminating in a performance of Julius Eastman’s ecstatic Stay On It, for which the concert is named. I’ll be on hand as pianist, singer, and host. Tickets are here.
II. Louisville
The New York Times recently published a beautiful piece about my friend, colleague, and collaborator Teddy Abrams, who is now in his ninth season as music director of the Louisville Orchestra. Teddy is among the most inspiring people I’ve ever met. Not only is he a first-rate pianist, clarinetist, and conductor; he is also an unparalleled visionary when it comes to the conception of a symphony orchestra’s relationship to its community. (He’s a formidable composer to boot!)
Teddy is that rare individual who dreams big, and then has the moxie / discipline / competence to make those dreams reality. (One instance of this is the LO Creators Corps, which, through a $750,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation, has created salaried positions with housing and health benefits for three composers to live and work in Louisville for a year. The program is now in its second season, and will continue in 2024/2025, by which point nine composers will have descended on the city to live and work within the community. I can’t think of another institution that is making this kind of investment in the belief that living composers are crucial to an orchestra’s long-term health.)
Next month, I’ll make a week-long visit to Louisville to hear performances of my piano concerto, Heirloom, written for my father, Jeffrey Kahane. It’ll be a gas to hang out with Teddy and my dad. If you live in the area, please stop by! (For those in the Twin Cities, you can hear Heirloom Thanksgiving week in St. Paul, where I’ll be conducting; New Yorkers can hear it at Carnegie Hall on May 16, 2024, in a performance by The Knights under the baton of Eric Jacobsen.)
III. Los Angeles
Later in October, I’ll be returning to CAP UCLA for a performance of my music-theatre monodrama, Magnificent Bird, which has received continued development support from Playwrights Horizons in New York City. For this performance, I’m thrilled to be joined by the multi-Grammy-winning Attacca Quartet. Somehow, this will be the first time we’ve ever shared a stage, despite having worked together remotely (on the premiere of my string quartet, Klee, at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C.), and in the studio (on the Sylvan Esso EP Live at Electric Lady). This concert will take place at the newly renovated Nimoy Theatre (previously The Crest) on October 22 at 7pm. Tickets are here.
IV. Seattle
At present, I am barricaded in my studio, at work on a big piece for Roomful of Teeth that’s set to premiere on November 2nd at the Meany Center in Seattle. It’s a good old-fashioned collaboration: I’m trying to take everything that Teeth does brilliantly, and marry it to my world of songwriting. I’ll be on stage with them in some fashion… but it’s still a bit too soon for me to say how and/or in what capacity. More updates on that soon. In the meantime, tickets are here.
I think that’s it for now. Thank you as always for reading, and for your support.
Reading: Biography of X, by Catherine Lacey. (Finished a few days ago; may write about it, as I can’t stop thinking about the book.)
Listening: Current, music by Sam Adams, performed by Karen Gomyo, Conor Hanick, and Spektral Quartet.
Cooking: Pasta with zucchini, onion, calabrian chilies & irresponsible quantities of butter and parm.
Really looking forward to that Seattle show!