This weekend, it's a family affair for the San Antonio Philharmonic. The symphony, conducted by dynamo Jeffrey Kahane will be joined by acclaimed composer/pianist/vocalist Gabriel Kahane (no relation ... oh wait! Yes relation! Jeffrey and Gabriel are father and son).
They dropped by our studio to perform live on the air, and talk about the weekend's program. Says Jeffrey, "This is arguably the program that is the most personally meaningful to me. It is the kind of program that I have always dreamed about." It includes music by Gabriel: 3 songs, a piano concerto by him, and then a clarinet concerto he wrote for the superb clarinetist Anthony McGill, who will be performing. And to top it off, Gershwin's iconic "Rhapsody in Blue."
About the Gershwin, Kahane the elder speculates on "how many human beings in the world have heard that piece — probably more than any single piece of music ever written."
As a composer, Gabriel Kahane is excited about music that crosses boundaries. Classical? Folk? Pop? His singing voice is certainly not operatic: it's a crooning, lucid, delivery that puts one in mind of some cousin of both Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and James Taylor. Says he, "Perhaps those barriers and those distinctions will just continue to slip away.... And nowadays people make playlists where Brahms and Ligeti live next to Kendrick Lamar."
Concerts are Friday and Saturday, the 12th and 13th, at Scottish Rite Hall.
Information is available at saphil.org.
You can hear them performing Gabriel's music, and a stunning trip through a Joni Mitchell tune, using the audio player at the top of this page.
