Gabriel Kahane + Pekka Kuusisto: Council
After nearly a decade of musical friendship, it seems only fitting that the cult American singer-songwriter Gabriel Kahane and iconic Finnish musician Pekka Kuusisto have formalized their collaboration under the moniker Council. Now, they present an evening of intimate and sonically varied songs and chamber music, written during several writing retreats in Northern Karelia and Portland, Oregon.
With this new body of work, Kahane and Kuusisto attempt to locate the universal in the personal and vice versa: here are stories of individual and collective grief; of nostalgia, adolescence, and memory-play; of the joy, wonder, and perplexity of fatherhood in an era of global instability. As they explore and deepen their own friendship on stage, these two relentlessly searching artists offer a musical tapestry depicting the complexities of life in the 21st century.
The program is rounded out with music by, among others, J. S. Bach and Nico Muhly.
Gabriel Kahane—piano, voice, electric & acoustic guitars, harmonium, loops
Pekka Kuusisto—violin, voice, harmonium, four-string electric violin, loops, electronics
Initially named In the Garden of the Gift, this collaboration is now called Council.
Commissioned by San Francisco Performances, Chamber Music Northwest, Schubert Club / Liquid Music, and 92Y.
Co-presented with Patricia Reser Center for the Arts.
6:30-7pm | Arrive early to see prelude performances featuring Hailey Youn, Music4Harmony String Quartet, and the University of Oregon Graduate Sax Quartet!
“...an exercise in lyric beauty. He sings in a warm, resonant, melancholic baritone, which coasts upward into a plaintive falsetto. He plays the piano with a poetic touch—his father is the distinguished pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane—and his music is suffused with idiosyncratic, enriched tonal harmony.”
— The New Yorker
“Intensely virtuosic, the violin [Pekka Kuusisto’s] is nonetheless always part of a greater whole: from folky, whistled tunes to roaring and growling on the detuned bottom string, storms of colour are unleashed for the orchestra to absorb and rework in surging textures.”
— BBC Music Magazine
Patricia Reser Center for the Arts
Saturday, 5/4 • 7:30 pm PT
Artists
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Gabriel Kahane
Piano, Guitar & Composer
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Gabriel Kahane is a musician and storyteller whose work increasingly exists at the intersection of art and social practice. Hailed as “one of the finest songwriters of the day” by The New Yorker, he is known to haunt basement rock clubs and august concert halls alike, where you’ll likely find him in the green room, double-fisting coffee, and a book.
He has released five albums as a singer-songwriter including his most recent LP, Magnificent Bird, (Nonesuch Records), hailed by the San Francisco Chronicle as “a gorgeous, intimate collection of musical snapshots.” As a composer, he has been commissioned by many of America’s leading arts institutions, including the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, and the Public Theater, which in 2012 presented his musical, February House.
In his 2023-24 season, Kahane embarks on a new collaborative commissioning project with the Attacca Quartet, Pekka Kuusisto, and Roomful of Teeth as part of a two-year initiative with San Francisco Performances, with additional performances scheduled around the U.S. and Europe. Season highlights include the European premiere of emergency shelter intake form in London with the BBC Concert Orchestra, duo recitals with Jeffrey Kahane, a conducting appearance with The Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, and the New York premiere of his piano concerto, Heirloom, by Jeffrey Kahane and The Knights.
A frequent collaborator across a range of musical communities, Gabriel has worked with an array of artists including Paul Simon, Sufjan Stevens, Andrew Bird, Phoebe Bridgers, Caroline Shaw, and Chris Thile. In 2019, Kahane was named the inaugural Creative Chair for the Oregon Symphony. Kahane relocated with his family to Portland, Oregon in March of 2020. Their freakishly self-possessed cat, Roscoe Greebletron Jones III, when not under investigation for securities fraud, continues his fruitless attempts to monetize his Instagram account.
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Pekka Kuusisto
Violin & Composer
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Violinist, conductor, and composer Pekka Kuusisto is renowned for his artistic freedom and fresh approach to repertoire. Kuusisto is Artistic Director of Norwegian Chamber Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor & Artistic Co-Director of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from the 2023/24 season. He is also a Collaborative Partner of San Francisco Symphony and Artistic Best Friend of Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen.
In the 2023/24 season, Kuusisto performs with Mahler Chamber Orchestra, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchester, Helsinki Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Norwegian Chamber Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, NHK Symphony Orchestra Tokyo, and Boston Symphony Orchestra. He appears as guest conductor with Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Gothenburgh Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Swedish Chamber Orchestra, and Orchestre de chambre de Paris. As Council, Kuusisto also tours Norh America and Australia with American singer-songwriter, Gabriel Kahane.
In the 2022/23 season, Kuusisto debuted with Berliner Philharmoniker and performed with Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. He returned to orchestras such as The Cleveland Orchestra, San Francisco and Cincinnati Symphony Orchestras, Gürzenich-Orchester Köln, and Mahler Chamber Orchestra. Kuusisto made his debuts as a conductor with Philharmonia Orchestra and Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra. He is also Sinfonieorchester Basel’s Artist-in-Residence with whom he appeared as conductor, soloist, and recitalist.
Kuusisto is an enthusiastic advocate of contemporary music and a gifted improviser and regularly engages with people across the artistic spectrum. Uninhibited by conventional genre boundaries and noted for his innovative programming, recent projects have included collaborations with Hauschka and Kosminen, Dutch neurologist Erik Scherder, pioneer of electronic music Brian Crabtree, eminent jazz trumpeter Arve Henriksen, juggler Jay Gilligan, accordionist Dermot Dunne, and folk artist Sam Amidon.
In 2023, Kuusisto’s releases included an album for BIS on which he features as conductor of Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra, performing the first recording of Jaakko Kuusisto’s Symphony, Op. 39, and another for Alba as violinist with Malin Broman and Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra, performing works by Tarrodi, Byström, Larsson, and Zinovjev. In 2022, Kuusisto released his first album as conductor, partnering with Vilde Frang and Die Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie Bremen, presenting the Stravinsky and Beethoven Concerti for Warner (for which he is nominated in the concerto category of the 2023 Gramophone Awards), and as soloist performing the world premiere recording of Ades’s Märchentänze for violin and orchestra with Nicholas Collon and Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra for Ondine. With Pentatone, Kuusisto and Norwegian Chamber Orchestra presented the album, First Light, in 2021, featuring the world premiere recording of Nico Muhly’s violin concerto, Shrink. Other recent releases include Ades’s Violin Concerto, Concentric Paths, recorded with Aurora and Nicolas Collon for Deutsche Grammophon, Hillborg’s Bach Materia, and Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos No. 3 and No. 4 with Swedish Chamber Orchestra and Thomas Dausgaard for BIS, and Daniel Bjarnason’s Violin Concerto with Iceland Symphony Orchestra, with the composer conducting for Sono Luminus.
Pekka Kuusisto plays the Antonio Stradivari Golden Period c. 1709 ‘Scotta’ violin, generously loaned by an anonymous patron.