JEFFREY KAHANE – USA (Chair)

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, and European tours at the podium of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, along with countless lectures and artistic collaborations.  Kahane is currently Music Director of both the San Antonio Philharmonic and the Sarasota Music Festival.

During the 2024-2025 season, Kahane conducts the San Antonio Philharmonic in more than a dozen performances, including a special series of concerts featuring the GRAMMY®-winning vocal band Roomful of Teeth, an artistic partner to the orchestra. He also performs as a piano soloist in programs including an engagement at Northwestern University, where he is featured in a program with his son, composer Gabriel Kahane.

During his 20 seasons as Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, he led the orchestra on tours of the United States and Europe. He was instrumental in the creation of several new series. 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 multiple performances of Heirloom, a new concerto written for him by Gabriel Kahane, as a way of tracing the connections between music and three generations of family history.

When not on the road, he teaches a small class of gifted pianists and coaches chamber music 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.  Learn more at www.jeffreykahane.net.