Jeffrey Kahane, conductor and pianist
Musical Director of Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra
Since making his Carnegie Hall debut in 1983, Mr. Kahane has given recitals in many of major music centers including New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Atlanta. He appears as soloist with major orchestras such as the New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Rotterdam, or the Gewandhaus, and is also a popular figure at summer festivals including Aspen, Ravinia, Blossom, Caramoor, Mostly Mozart, Oregon Bach and the Hollywood Bowl. He is equally well-known for his collaborations with artists and chamber ensembles such as Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell, Thomas Quasthoff and the Emerson and Takacs Quartets.
He has conducted orchestras such as the New York, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Saint Paul Chamber, Academy of St. Martin’s in the Fields, and the Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Dallas and New World symphonies among others. Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra since 1997, Mr. Kahane concluded his tenure as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in June 2010 and was Music Director of the Santa Rosa Symphony for ten seasons. He has received much recognition for his innovative programming and commitment to education and community involvement with all three orchestras and received 2007 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming for his work in both Los Angeles and Denver.
In addition to his projects with LACO, recent highlights include appearances at the Aspen, Mostly Mozart and Oregon Bach festivals; concerto appearances with the Toronto, Cincinnati and Houston symphonies; play/conduct programs with the New York Philharmonic and the San Francisco, National and Indianapolis symphonies; a US recital tour with violinist Daniel Hope; an appearance with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center; and a European tour with the Camerata Salzburg as conductor and soloist.
His recordings include works of Gershwin and Bernstein with Yo-Yo Ma for SONY, Paul Schoenfield’s Four Parables with the New World Symphony and John Nelson for Decca/Argo, the Strauss Burleske on Telarc with the Cincinnati and Jesus Lopez-Cobos, and the complete Brandenburg Concerti (on harpsichord) with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra under Helmuth Rilling on the Haenssler label. He has also recorded the complete works for violin and piano by Schubert with Joseph Swensen for RCA, Bach’s Sinfonias and Partita #4 in D Major for Nonesuch and Bernstein’s “Age of Anxiety” for Virgin Records, which was nominated by Gramophone magazine for their “Record of the Year” award.
A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Mr. Kahane’s early piano studies were with Howard Weisel and Jakob Gimpel. First Prize winner at the 1983 Rubinstein Competition and a finalist at the 1981 Van Cliburn Competition, he was also the recipient of a 1983 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the first Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award in 1987.
