Equally at home at the keyboard or on the podium, JEFFREY KAHANE has established an international reputation as a truly versatile artist, recognized by audiences around the world for his mastery of a diverse repertoire ranging from Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven to Gershwin, Golijov, and John Adams.

Since making his Carnegie Hall debut in 1983, Kahane has given recitals in many of the nation’s major music centers, including New York, Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. He appears as soloist with major orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the San Francisco Symphony, the Rotterdam Philharmonic, the Israel Philharmonic, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus, and is also a popular figure at all of the major U.S. summer festivals. Kahane is equally well-known for his collaborations with artists and chamber ensembles such as Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, Joshua Bell, Thomas Quasthoff, and the Emerson and Takács Quartets.

Jeffrey Kahane made his conducting debut at the Oregon Bach Festival in 1988. Since then he has guest conducted orchestras such as the New York and Los Angeles philharmonics, the Philadelphia Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, and the Chicago, Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore, Indianapolis, Dallas, and New World symphonies, among others. Currently in his 15th season as Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Kahane concluded his tenure as Music Director of the Colorado Symphony in June 2010 and was Music Director of the Santa Rosa Symphony for ten seasons. He has received much recognition for his innovative programming and commitment to education and community involvement with all three orchestras and received 2007 ASCAP Awards for Adventurous Programming for his work in both Los Angeles and Denver.

In addition to his programs and projects with LACO, recent and upcoming engagements include appearances at the Aspen, Mostly Mozart, Ravinia, Blossom, and Oregon Bach festivals; concerto performances with the Toronto and Houston symphony orchestras; guest conducting the San Francisco, National, and Indianapolis symphonies; a U.S. recital tour with violinist Daniel Hope; and an appearance with the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center. Kahane’s recent European engagements include play/conduct programs with the Camerata Salzburg and the Hamburg Symphony.

Highlights of his 2011/12 season include play/conduct programs with the New York Philharmonic and with the Vancouver, Seattle, and New Jersey symphonies; his debut conducting the Juilliard Orchestra at Lincoln Center; play/conducting a Beyond the Score program with the Philadelphia Orchestra; and tonight’s solo/chamber music program presented by the Los Angeles Philharmonic in honor of his 15th anniversary as Music Director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Jeffrey Kahane’s recordings include works of Gershwin and Bernstein with Yo-Yo Ma for Sony, Paul Schoenfield’s Four Parables with the New World Symphony conducted by John Nelson for Decca/Argo, the Strauss Burleske on Telarc with the Cincinnati Symphony under Jesús López-Cobos, and the complete Brandenburg Concertos (on harpsichord) with the Oregon Bach Festival Orchestra under Helmuth Rilling on the Haenssler label. He has also recorded the complete works for violin and piano by Schubert with Joseph Swensen for RCA, Bach’s Sinfonias and Partita No. 4 in D major for Nonesuch, and the piano solo in Bernstein’s Symphony No. 2, “The Age of Anxiety” for Virgin Records, which was nominated by Gramophone magazine for its Record of the Year award.

A native of Los Angeles and a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, Kahane had early piano studies with Howard Weisel and Jakob Gimpel. A first-prize winner at the 1983 Rubinstein Competition and a finalist at the 1981 Van Cliburn Competition, he was also the recipient of a 1983 Avery Fisher Career Grant and the first Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award in 1987. An avid linguist who reads widely in a number of ancient and modern languages, Kahane received a Master’s Degree in Classics from the University of Colorado at Boulder in 2011.

Jeffrey Kahane resides in Santa Rosa with his wife, Martha, a clinical psychologist in private practice. They have two children – Gabriel, a composer, pianist, and singer/songwriter, and Annie, a dancer and poet.