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Gabriel
Kahane is a boy who dropped out of high school & then graduated from
an Ivy League institution. But he is neither pompous nor foolish. At least
not at the same time. It’s precisely this kind of mixed metaphor
that drives Gabriel’s artistic life: witness his most recent work
wherein he’s set ribald postings from craigslist.org to chromatic,
harmonically dense, & rhythmically jagged music in the song cycle,
Craigslistlieder. It would be a mistake, however, to pin Gabriel
as a gimmicky guy. For while he writes cheeky pop confections about the
renovations at his local supermarket & the emasculating effect that
American Apparel stores can have on a man, he’s perhaps most gifted
at (& most interested in) offering direct emotional experiences through
introspective ballads. Gabriel grew up surrounded by music, but not by
TV, & interestingly, his work reflects his devotion to both. He loves
Lost, but will dare miss it to perform with The Los Angeles Chamber
Orchestra, Thomas Quasthoff, Verbier Festival, or in Wigmore Hall in London,
Berlin Philharmonie, post Brit-pop band The Rinse, Feinstein’s At
The Regency, or at any of a number of stages close(r) to home. Gabriel
has collaborated extensively in the dance & theater worlds. While
a student at Brown University, he wrote the music for Straight Man
(book by Thomas Beatty), which was named Best Musical by the American
College Theater Festival/The Kennedy Center. He toured the country, performing
the music of Schumann & Lou Harrison for The Mark Morris Dance Group.
He composed & performed a song cycle based on the work of photographer
William Eggleston for an NYU production of Sam Shepard’s A Lie
of the Mind & acted in a workshop of The History of Tears,
a play by Michael Tisdale & Michael Cerveris. Gabriel often works
with Les Freres Corbusier, the current darling of the downtown theater
scene. He has served as musical director for their last three shows: Bloody
Bloody Andrew Jackson (an emo musical), Hell House, &
A Very Merry Unauthorized Children’s Scientology Pageant.
In more respectable (read: uptown) settings, he was also musical director
for the Signature Theatre’s acclaimed revival of John Guare’s
Landscape of the Body, starring Lili Taylor & Sheri Rene
Scott. The winter of 2006 sees the release of Gabriel’s Walking
Away From Winter, an ep that includes parts one through four of Craigslistlieder:
You Looked Sexy, I’m Sorry, Half A Box Of
Condoms, & Neurotic and Lonely. Gabriel lives in Brooklyn,
with his beloved cat, Clara, & many books. But you figured as much,
no?
www.gabrielkahane.com |
