Gabriel Kahane, best known as “a musician who synthesizes influences from classical, pop and art songs into work that’s often dense with contemporary concern,” (American Theatre) has joined the creative team for 2018’s RICHARD II, directed by HVSF Artistic Director Davis McCallum and featuring Julia Coffey in the title role.
Kahane, an avid theater artist, will compose original music for Shakespeare’s poetic masterpiece about power, pageantry, and privilege. The composer-lyricist of the musical February House (2012 premiere, the Public Theater) – written in collaboration with RIP VAN WINKLE writer/director Seth Bockley and directed by Davis McCallum – Kahane has also appeared at the BAM Next Wave Festival with the staged version of his song-cycle-ode to Los Angeles titled The Ambassador (“one of the year’s very best albums” – Rolling Stone), and 8980: Book of Travelers, a look at the complicated American body politic of today.
Kahane has collaborated with a diverse array of artists, including Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Blake Mills, and Chris Thile (of Punch Brothers). As a composer, he has been commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, A Far Cry, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Oregon Symphony, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra. Other orchestral highlights have included solo appearances with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Colorado Symphony, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and NYC’s The Knights. More about Gabriel Kahane.
