Celebrated for his “imagination, devotion and supreme musicianship” (Los Angeles Times), Jeffrey Kahane is now in the fifth decade of an expansive and eclectic musical career. As a pianist, conductor and scholar, his career highlights run the gamut from concertos with the New York Philharmonic and San Francisco Symphony, to recitals with Yo-Yo Ma and Joshua Bell, European tours at the podium of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, lectures and performances of Beethoven symphonies informed by his immersion in ancient literature, and collaborations with the Emerson, Miró, Dover, Attacca and Calidore String Quartets.
Following a decades-long association with the San Antonio Symphony, and having maintained close ties to the musicians since his conducting debut with the orchestra in 1992, Kahane served as the first Music Director of the newly re-formed San Antonio Philharmonic from 2024 to 2026. He also served as Music Director of the Sarasota Music Festival for nine seasons.
During his 20 seasons as Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, he led the orchestra on an East Coast tour, including a sold-out Carnegie Hall concert with bass-baritone Thomas Quasthoff, as well as an eight-city European tour. He was instrumental in the creation of several new series, including his signature “Discover” concerts, each of which illuminated a major work via a lecture-demonstration and performance. Among his proudest achievements from his LACO tenure was the introduction of a commissioning club, “Sound Investment,” that allowed club members to follow a composer’s process from conception to premiere.
In addition to the dozens of works commissioned or premiered by the orchestras where he has served as music director, Kahane has premiered piano concertos written for him by composers Kevin Puts and Andrew Norman. He has also given many performances of Heirloom, a new concerto written for him by his son, composer Gabriel Kahane, as a way of tracing the connections between music and three generations of family history.
Continuing his pursuit of a lifelong passion for the study of languages and literature, he went back to school in 2009 to study ancient Greek and Latin, earning a Master’s degree in Classics in 2011 from the University of Colorado at Boulder. He is currently pursuing a PhD in Classics at the University of Southern California. He is fluent in several modern languages and has seriously studied several others.
Kahane teaches a small class of gifted pianists, coaches chamber music, and occasionally teaches academic courses at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music, and occasionally guest conducts the USC Thornton Symphony. In cooperation with the USC Classics department, he recently developed and co-taught a general education course for undergraduates exploring the connections between classical music and ancient classical literature. Kahane and his wife, Martha – a psychologist, choral singer, and writer – met at summer camp at age ten. Their daughter Annie is an accomplished choreographer-dancer-poet, while their son Gabriel is a widely acclaimed singer-songwriter-composer. Learn more at www.jeffreykahane.net.
