Gabriel Kahane // Magnificent Bird

"One of the finest, most searching songwriters of the day." —The New Yorker

Composer, pianist and singer Gabriel Kahane grafts a deep interest in storytelling to a keen sense of harmony and rhythm. In this intimate solo performance, he presents a new slate of songs selected from thirty-one pieces he composed in October 2020, one for each day of that tumultuous month. This latest work—among the most personal Kahane has written in a decade—is, by design, introspective. Marriage, friendship and fatherhood come to the fore against the ambient grief of a divided country facing down a global pandemic and catastrophic climate change.

For this performance, a dozen new songs are brought into conversation with earlier work, including moments from Kahane’s 8,980-mile train trip-inspired Book of Travelers, as well as excerpts from Twitterkreis, irreverent miniatures drawn from the bowels of the internet. In sum, the evening amounts to a personal and impassioned exploration of how we can strive to see ourselves in each other, to renew trust and empathy, and to build coalitions sufficiently powerful to make a more just society and healthier planet, at a time when digital spaces conspire to tear us apart.