Jeffrey Kahane

Conductor | Pianist | Educator

About Jeffrey

“Over the years, I have tried my best to bring a sense of moral and ethical purpose to everything I do as a musician, and to transmit the sense that we are not just making beautiful sounds, but engaging in storytelling, in acts of imagination and ethical choices.”

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, lecture and performances of Beethoven symphonies informed by his immersion in ancient literature, and collaborations with the Emerson, Miró, Dover, Attacca and Calidore String Quartets.

Highlights of Kahane’s recent seasons include his return to the Colorado Symphony as guest conductor and soloist; an engagement as piano soloist with the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra in a performance of his son, Gabriel Kahane’s, Heirloom (conducted by the composer); and a May 2024 performance of the same concerto at Carnegie Hall with The Knights under the direction of Eric Jacobsen, which was released as an album on Nonesuch Records. Solo appearances include programs with the Oregon Symphony, the Louisville Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, High Desert Chamber Music (Bend, OR), and Northwestern University, where he was featured in a program with his son, composer Gabriel Kahane…

Heirloom

Gabriel Kahane | Jeffrey Kahane
The Knights | Eric Jacobsen

Composer/singer/songwriter Gabriel Kahane’s third Nonesuch album, Heirloom, was released on October 10, 2025. The album features a concerto for piano and chamber orchestra by the same name, written by Gabriel Kahane for his father, the conductor and pianist Jeffrey Kahane. The work was commissioned by Linda and (the late) Stuart Nelson, with additional support from the Kansas City Symphony, Oregon Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, and Brooklyn-based orchestral collective The Knights, who also perform on the record. In Gabriel Kahane’s words, “Heirloom is an aural family scrapbook, exploring, in its three movements, a series of inheritances.” The album also features “Where are the Arms,” the title track from Kahane’s sophomore LP, heard here in a new orchestral arrangement performed by Gabriel Kahane (vocals, guitar, electronics) with The Knights.

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USC Thornton School of Music

Jeffrey was appointed to the faculty of the Thornton School of Music at the University of Southern California in 2016. He teaches a highly select group of outstanding pianists, as well as coaching chamber music and teaching courses in performance practice. In 2021, he co-taught a course which he developed with colleagues from the Department of Classics, on the connections between ancient Greek and Roman literature and the history of classical music. He has also taken numerous courses in the USC Classics department allowing him to pursue his passion for studying Greek and Latin literature in the original languages. Jeffrey previously taught at the New England Conservatory, the Eastman School of Music, and in 2012-13 was Professor of Music and the Humanities at Bard College.

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