boomBOOM presents
Gabriel Kahane
Elizabeth and the Catapult
Wed, September 14, 2011
Doors: 8:00 pm / Show: 9:00 pm
Littlefield$15.00 - $18.00
Tickets
This event is 21 and over
http://www.littlefieldnyc.com/event/55311/
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Gabriel Kahane - (Set time: 9:45 PM)
Writing and performing music that moves effortlessly from dense modernism to spare vernacular song, pianist, composer, and singer Gabriel Kahane has established himself as a leading voice among a generation of young composers redefining music for the 21st century. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times for “an all around dazzling performance” in his debut at Walt Disney Concert Hall with the Los Angeles Philharmonic earlier this year (in the premiere of his song cycle Orinoco Sketches, conducted by John Adams), Mr. Kahane moves with ease as a performer between musical realms.
Performance highlights of the 2010-11 season included sold out concerts with artists as varied as Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau, the cellist Alisa Weilerstein, as well as with his father, the noted pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane, with whom he collaborated on a critically acclaimed duo recital at Denver’s Newman Center for the Arts. In addition, Kahane commissioned ten songs from ten composers, including Timo Andres, Ted Hearne, and Andrew Norman, for a solo recital presented by the MATA Festival, juxtaposed with a performance of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, for which Kahane accompanied himself at the piano.
Gabriel has performed and/or recorded with Sufjan Stevens, Rufus Wainwright, Punch Brothers, and Audra McDonald, who has incorporated his songs into her repertoire.The fall of 2011 also witnesses the release of Where Are the Arms, Kahane’s second full album as a recording artist. Where Are the Arms picks up where Mr. Kahane’s self-titled debut left off, refining the relationship between music and text while further marrying intricate chamber arrangements to intimate narrative-driven songs, anchored by Kahane’s voice, described by Alex Ross of the New Yorker as “sonorous, mesmerizing”.
This summer, Gabriel serves as composer-in-residence at the Bravo Vail Valley Chamber Music Festival, where he will remount his critically acclaimed Lincoln Center American Songbook debut supported by an ensemble of eleven musicians, including the Calder Quartet, with whom he will premiere a new song cycle for voice and string quartet. Additional summer activities include recitals at Aspen and Caramoor, as well as a residency at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City.
Launched by his 2006 song cycle Craigslistlieder—heard from Vancouver to Virginia, by Mr Kahane and lieder singers alike—Kahane’s rapid ascent as a composer of concert works continues to bloom in the 2011-2012 season, with the premiere of a large concerto-like song cycle slated for Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in March with Kahane as soloist alongside the American Composers Orchestra. Additional performances of the work will be heard with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as at the Savannah Music Festival. Little Sleep's Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight, a cello sonata-cum-song cycle written for Alisa Weilerstein, will be heard in a concert for Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society with the composer as pianist and singer. A string quartet, The Red Book, written for the Kronos Quartet, will be premiered in the fall.
Through a Music Alive grant with Meet-the-Composer, Gabriel will serve as composer-in-residence for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra from 2011 to 2013. One of the most sought after theater composers of his generation, Kahane wrote music and lyrics for February House, which will enjoy back to back productions in 2012, first at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven before arriving at the Public Theater, which commissioned the work, for its New York premiere in the spring of 2012. The musical, with a book by Seth Bockley, chronicles the unlikely housing of a coterie of artists-- including W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Carson McCullers, and Gypsy Rose Lee-- within the walls of a single dilapidated Victorian mansion in Brooklyn Heights during World War II. Gabriel has also received theatrical commissions from the Signature Theater in Arlington VA and the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts. A 2010 MacDowell Colony fellow, Kahane makes his home in Brooklyn, New York, in close company with a century-old piano and many books.
Performance highlights of the 2010-11 season included sold out concerts with artists as varied as Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau, the cellist Alisa Weilerstein, as well as with his father, the noted pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane, with whom he collaborated on a critically acclaimed duo recital at Denver’s Newman Center for the Arts. In addition, Kahane commissioned ten songs from ten composers, including Timo Andres, Ted Hearne, and Andrew Norman, for a solo recital presented by the MATA Festival, juxtaposed with a performance of Schumann’s Dichterliebe, for which Kahane accompanied himself at the piano.
Gabriel has performed and/or recorded with Sufjan Stevens, Rufus Wainwright, Punch Brothers, and Audra McDonald, who has incorporated his songs into her repertoire.The fall of 2011 also witnesses the release of Where Are the Arms, Kahane’s second full album as a recording artist. Where Are the Arms picks up where Mr. Kahane’s self-titled debut left off, refining the relationship between music and text while further marrying intricate chamber arrangements to intimate narrative-driven songs, anchored by Kahane’s voice, described by Alex Ross of the New Yorker as “sonorous, mesmerizing”.
This summer, Gabriel serves as composer-in-residence at the Bravo Vail Valley Chamber Music Festival, where he will remount his critically acclaimed Lincoln Center American Songbook debut supported by an ensemble of eleven musicians, including the Calder Quartet, with whom he will premiere a new song cycle for voice and string quartet. Additional summer activities include recitals at Aspen and Caramoor, as well as a residency at Rockwood Music Hall in New York City.
Launched by his 2006 song cycle Craigslistlieder—heard from Vancouver to Virginia, by Mr Kahane and lieder singers alike—Kahane’s rapid ascent as a composer of concert works continues to bloom in the 2011-2012 season, with the premiere of a large concerto-like song cycle slated for Carnegie Hall's Zankel Hall in March with Kahane as soloist alongside the American Composers Orchestra. Additional performances of the work will be heard with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, as well as at the Savannah Music Festival. Little Sleep's Head Sprouting Hair in the Moonlight, a cello sonata-cum-song cycle written for Alisa Weilerstein, will be heard in a concert for Lincoln Center's Chamber Music Society with the composer as pianist and singer. A string quartet, The Red Book, written for the Kronos Quartet, will be premiered in the fall.
Through a Music Alive grant with Meet-the-Composer, Gabriel will serve as composer-in-residence for the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra from 2011 to 2013. One of the most sought after theater composers of his generation, Kahane wrote music and lyrics for February House, which will enjoy back to back productions in 2012, first at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven before arriving at the Public Theater, which commissioned the work, for its New York premiere in the spring of 2012. The musical, with a book by Seth Bockley, chronicles the unlikely housing of a coterie of artists-- including W.H. Auden, Benjamin Britten, Carson McCullers, and Gypsy Rose Lee-- within the walls of a single dilapidated Victorian mansion in Brooklyn Heights during World War II. Gabriel has also received theatrical commissions from the Signature Theater in Arlington VA and the Williamstown Theater Festival in Massachusetts. A 2010 MacDowell Colony fellow, Kahane makes his home in Brooklyn, New York, in close company with a century-old piano and many books.
Elizabeth and the Catapult - (Set time: 9:00 PM)
“I’d hope there’s humor to both of our albums, but they’re actually quite different from one another,” says Elizabeth Ziman, the singer/songwriter/keyboardist behind Elizabeth and the Catapult. “While Taller Children has the sarcastic lightness of a Woody Allen film, the new record’s more in the vein of Kubrick or Lynch. It’s a bit darker, a bit more tongue-in-cheek – another side to who we are.”
The reason for this shift isn’t as simple as a sudden breakup or breakdown. The dissonant strains are lurking between the lines, from the clanging chords and galloping groove of “The Horse and the Missing Cart” to the hopeful but bitter contrasts of “Thank You For Nothing,” a heartbroken ballad that channels the Buddhist teachings of an old Leonard Cohen poem.
As it turns out, Elizabeth read Cohen’s Book of Longing collection from cover to cover while working on the Lincoln Center song cycle – performed last spring for a commission from NPR’s John Schaefer – that gave The Other Side of Zero its title and a handful of tracks. As the pages sunk in, one particular theme stood out: Cohen’s struggle to meet Buddhist goals in a monastery, which Elizabeth felt paralleled her own coming-of-age struggles while living and growing up in New York City.
“Once I finished the book,” she says, “I realized that reaching this zen state wasn’t a realistic goal. Not for Leonard, and certainly not for me. It’s more about the intent of letting go, and being able to laugh after you fall.”
Cohen’s book also helped Elizabeth see parallels between the pain and growth in relationships and the gestures of balance in Buddhism. Songs about taming the extremes, finding similarities between opposites, and accepting the moment. While “Thank You for Nothing” sounds pretty self-explanatory, it does more than pull the plug on a flat-lining relationship. It exposes the blurry line between gratitude and ingratitude, and how they often feed off of each other. (“I’ll just keep saying it/Thank you, thank you/Thank you for everything/Thank you for nothing at all.”) Meanwhile, “The Horse and the Missing Cart” is a cautionary tale about seizing the day; about actually doing things, rather than worrying about whether or not you should act.
Which brings us to why The Other Side of Zero is Elizabeth & the Catapult’s rawest set of recordings yet. Unlike their thoroughly-demoed debut – an album that took two years to complete – the Zero sessions boiled down to a month of recording with producer Tony Berg (Peter Gabriel, Phantom Planet, Jesca Hoop) and such respected sidemen as guitarist Blake Mills and Tom Waits’ longtime touring keyboardist, Patrick Warren.
The result was rough but refined, bruised but beautiful, as if Berg had placed a mic in a room and walked away, letting Elizabeth and drummer Danny Molad do their thing. Or as Elizabeth puts it, “This record’s more abrasive, more blatantly honest – perhaps even rude at times. Maybe intentionally so.”
Rude isn’t the right word. More like scrappy and spontaneous, with Elizabeth’s film score skills – for a while there, she wanted to be a scene-stealing composer – coloring each song like a Technicolor movie print. Take “Go Away My Lover,” a dagger-drawing duet that brings a couple to its close alongside speaker-smacking drums, demented whistles, and a call-and-response chorus that races to put all of this – the memories, the longing, and ultimately, the regret – to rest.
And then there’s the title track. Led by a lean, winding piano line, it builds to a spine-tingling crescendo alongside the honey-dipped harmonies of Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings – a collaboration that was completely unplanned. Not that you’d notice, considering how seamless it sounds.
One thing Elizabeth made sure to write down months in advance were her lyrics, which often take months of intensive editing. And even then, it’s hard to let them go without poring over every last word. Especially in this case – a highly personal examination of love and loss, and growing older.
“Even the happiest sounding pop songs on this record have a tinge of regret and darkness to them,” explains Elizabeth. “And thank goodness for that. Ultimately that’s the only way I’d feel comfortable singing them. I’m drawn to the ambiguity like a menacing smile.”
The reason for this shift isn’t as simple as a sudden breakup or breakdown. The dissonant strains are lurking between the lines, from the clanging chords and galloping groove of “The Horse and the Missing Cart” to the hopeful but bitter contrasts of “Thank You For Nothing,” a heartbroken ballad that channels the Buddhist teachings of an old Leonard Cohen poem.
As it turns out, Elizabeth read Cohen’s Book of Longing collection from cover to cover while working on the Lincoln Center song cycle – performed last spring for a commission from NPR’s John Schaefer – that gave The Other Side of Zero its title and a handful of tracks. As the pages sunk in, one particular theme stood out: Cohen’s struggle to meet Buddhist goals in a monastery, which Elizabeth felt paralleled her own coming-of-age struggles while living and growing up in New York City.
“Once I finished the book,” she says, “I realized that reaching this zen state wasn’t a realistic goal. Not for Leonard, and certainly not for me. It’s more about the intent of letting go, and being able to laugh after you fall.”
Cohen’s book also helped Elizabeth see parallels between the pain and growth in relationships and the gestures of balance in Buddhism. Songs about taming the extremes, finding similarities between opposites, and accepting the moment. While “Thank You for Nothing” sounds pretty self-explanatory, it does more than pull the plug on a flat-lining relationship. It exposes the blurry line between gratitude and ingratitude, and how they often feed off of each other. (“I’ll just keep saying it/Thank you, thank you/Thank you for everything/Thank you for nothing at all.”) Meanwhile, “The Horse and the Missing Cart” is a cautionary tale about seizing the day; about actually doing things, rather than worrying about whether or not you should act.
Which brings us to why The Other Side of Zero is Elizabeth & the Catapult’s rawest set of recordings yet. Unlike their thoroughly-demoed debut – an album that took two years to complete – the Zero sessions boiled down to a month of recording with producer Tony Berg (Peter Gabriel, Phantom Planet, Jesca Hoop) and such respected sidemen as guitarist Blake Mills and Tom Waits’ longtime touring keyboardist, Patrick Warren.
The result was rough but refined, bruised but beautiful, as if Berg had placed a mic in a room and walked away, letting Elizabeth and drummer Danny Molad do their thing. Or as Elizabeth puts it, “This record’s more abrasive, more blatantly honest – perhaps even rude at times. Maybe intentionally so.”
Rude isn’t the right word. More like scrappy and spontaneous, with Elizabeth’s film score skills – for a while there, she wanted to be a scene-stealing composer – coloring each song like a Technicolor movie print. Take “Go Away My Lover,” a dagger-drawing duet that brings a couple to its close alongside speaker-smacking drums, demented whistles, and a call-and-response chorus that races to put all of this – the memories, the longing, and ultimately, the regret – to rest.
And then there’s the title track. Led by a lean, winding piano line, it builds to a spine-tingling crescendo alongside the honey-dipped harmonies of Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings – a collaboration that was completely unplanned. Not that you’d notice, considering how seamless it sounds.
One thing Elizabeth made sure to write down months in advance were her lyrics, which often take months of intensive editing. And even then, it’s hard to let them go without poring over every last word. Especially in this case – a highly personal examination of love and loss, and growing older.
“Even the happiest sounding pop songs on this record have a tinge of regret and darkness to them,” explains Elizabeth. “And thank goodness for that. Ultimately that’s the only way I’d feel comfortable singing them. I’m drawn to the ambiguity like a menacing smile.”
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