The Cliburne Sessions: Timo Andres + Gabriel Kahane

Timo Andres (b. 1985, Palo Alto, CA) is a composer and pianist who grew up in rural Connecticut, studied at Yale University and now lives in Brooklyn, NY. A Nonesuch Records artist, his newest album of orchestral works, “Home Stretch”, has been hailed for its “playful intelligence and individuality,” (The Guardian) and of his 2010 debut album for two pianos, “Shy and Mighty”, Alex Ross wrote in The New Yorker that “it achieves an unhurried grandeur that has rarely been felt in American music since John Adams came on the scene… more mighty than shy, [Andres] sounds like himself.”

Upcoming highlights include a new orchestral work for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra; a performance – with Andres at the keyboard – of his re-composition of Mozart’s “Coronation Concerto” at the 2014 Ojai Festival with the Knights Chamber Orchestra; and a subscription week with the North Carolina Symphony, performing both his 2011 work, “Old Keys”, and Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue.

Andres has received commissions from the Los Angeles Philharmonic; the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra; from a consortium including Carnegie Hall, Wigmore Hall, the Concertgebouw Amsterdam and San Francisco Performances for Jonathan Biss and the Elias String Quartet; from the Gilmore Foundation for Kirill Gerstein; from the University of Notre Dame for Third Coast Percussion; and from the Library of Congress for the Attacca Quartet, among others.

He has been presented in solo recital by Lincoln Center, Wigmore Hall, (le) Poisson Rouge, and San Francisco Performances, and performed the world premiere of selected Philip Glass Etudes, alongside the composer, at the Barbican in London.


Hailed by Rolling Stone as "one of the year's very best albums", Gabriel Kahane's major label debut, The Ambassador, is a meditation on the underbelly of Los Angeles seen through the lens of ten street addresses. Last season, Kahane appeared at BAM's Harvey Theater in the critically-acclaimed New York premiere of the stage production of The Ambassador, directed by Tony Award-winner John Tiffany. The production was also presented by the Center for the Art of Performance at UCLA, as well as by Carolina Performing Arts at UNC Chapel Hill, where Kahane is involved in a multi-year academic and artistic residency.

The 2015-2016 season finds Mr. Kahane involved in a number of touring projects with friends and collaborators new and old. In addition to making solo appearances with the North Carolina and Colorado Symphonies, as well as with Boston-based string orchestra A Far Cry, Kahane will appear on separate tours with the string quartet Brooklyn Rider, and with pianist/composer Timo Andres, the latter tour culminating in a duo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of that institution's 125th anniversary season. In March, Kahane makes his European solo debut in a concert at the recently opened Paris Philharmonie.

Gabriel has been commissioned by, among others, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Carnegie Hall, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Kronos Quartet, and Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, with whom, as Orpheus' first composer-in-residence, he toured in the spring of 2013 performing Gabriel's Guide to the 48 States,an hour-long cycle on texts from the WPA American Guide Series.

Kahane's recent studio credits, aside from his work as a leader, include a track on last year's Beck Song Reader; appearances on Blake Mills' Heigh Ho alongside Fiona Apple and Jon Brion; several projects with Sufjan Stevens; as well as performances and recordings with Chris Thile of Punch Brothers, for whom Gabriel opens on tour throughout the U.S. in 2015.

An avid theater artist, Gabriel's musical February House, with book by playwright Seth Bockley, received world premiere productions at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven and New York's Public Theater in 2012; an original cast album was released on StorySound Records. Upcoming theater projects include commissions from the Public Theater in New York and Signature Theater in Arlington, VA, as well as a collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Annie Baker.

A graduate of Brown University and two-time MacDowell Colony fellow, Gabriel lives in Brooklyn, NY.