Ravinia 2023 Issue 4

“ I didn’t know anything else. It was just normal, traveling around the world when I was little and hearing Jeffrey play so much incredible repertoire with so many incredible musicians. ” –GABRIELKAHANE JASON QUIGLEY Joni Mitchell and Rufus Wainwright, as a musical foundation. “Finally, I said, okay, let’s do this,” he said. Once Gabriel agreed to write the concerto, it didn’t take much convinc- ing to get six orchestras and organi- zations to sign on as commissioners because of the appealing circumstanc- es around it. “It’s such a unique thing,” Jeffrey said, “for someone to write a concerto for their father. We tried to think of other instances of that, and I haven’t been able to come up with an example. So there is something very poignant just about the whole idea.” In addition to The Knights and the Kansas City Symphony, the group in- cludes the Oregon Symphony (where Gabriel has served as creative chair since 2018), Aspen Music Festival, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (where Jeffrey was music director 1997–2017) and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra. The result is what Gabriel calls an “aural family scrapbook” where each of the three movements is dedicated to different members of his family, including his parents and his eldest daughter (his second daughter was not yet born at the time). “There’s a very beautiful aspect of this piece that is both autobiographical and biographical, and it taps so deeply into all the different strands of shared family history,” Jeffrey said. The “emotional heart” of this piece is the second movement, My Grand- mother Knew Alban Berg , which pays tribute to his paternal German-Jewish grandmother, Hannelore, who man- aged to flee the Nazis in 1938, ulti- mately arriving in Los Angeles after stops in Havana and New Orleans. Afterward, there was always uneasy tension around the music and litera- ture of Germany that she still enjoyed and appreciated even as she knew that some of it had been co-opted and tainted by the Nazis, who killed other members of Gabriel and Jeffrey’s extended family. “In this piece,” Gabriel writes in his program notes, “I ask, How does that complex set of emotions get trans- mitted across generations? What do we inherit, more broadly, from our forebears? And as a musician caught between two traditions, how do I bring my craft as a songwriter into the more formal setting of the concert hall?” The work is infused with the lyr- icism of Gabriel’s songwriting voice, Jeffrey said, and its musical language ranges from the pop-tinged opening movement to the unsettled harmonic world of Berg in the second to the fun, bluegrass-influenced third. Along the way are references to Mozart, Brahms, and Ravel. “It sounds like many different things,” Jeffrey said. “It’s a wonderful kind of tapestry of different musical languages, and I think that is precisely the point, that his musical upbringing was like that.” Gabriel, who moved to Portland in 2020, is finishing a short orchestral opener that the Oregon Symphony is premiering this fall, and he is already set to work on his next big instrumen- tal work, an 18-to-20-minute concerto for Anthony McGill, principal clari- netist of the New York Philharmonic. “Anthony and I have admired each other for a long time, and he played on a song [“Die Traumdeutung”] on my last album, Magnificent Bird , this clarinet, piano, and voice piece, and I’m really excited to write for him.” The work is part of The Knights’ re- cently announced multiyear Rhapsody Project , which marks the 2024 centen- nial of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue . The chamber orchestra has invited a group of composers to write rhap- sodies inspired by the spirit of that iconic work but rethought for today’s musical world. At the same time, he remains fo- cused on Heirloom , which has gener- ated what Jeffrey called “tremendously enthusiastic” responses from audienc- es. “I’m sure lots of people are going to play this piece,” he said. Performances in 2023–24 include Gabriel leading a presentation with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra and The Knights performing it in May 2024 at Carnegie Hall. “It’s pretty cool,” the composer said. “By the time it gets to New York, it will have 12 or 13 performances.” And if all that isn’t enough, a record- ing is planned for late 2024 early 2025. “I’m most comfortable understand- ing the world and communicating through music and language,” Gabriel said, “but I also feel I have things to say through music alone. There are certain pieces of instrumental music that feel like an urgency for me, and this is definitely one of them. I’m re- ally, really glad this piece is out in the world, and it’s being done a lot.” Kyle MacMillan served as classical music critic for the Denver Post from 2000 through 2011. He currently freelances in Chicago, writing for such publications and websites as the Chicago Sun- Times , Early Music America , Opera News , and Classical Voice of North America . RAVINIA MAGAZINE • JULY 31 – AUGUST 14, 2023 18