(Jeffrey Kahane | Photo by E.F. Marton Productions)
On Friday, March 7, High Desert Chamber Music’s (HDCM) 17th season will continue by presenting celebrated pianist Jeffrey Kahane in a very special concert and lecture on Bach’s Goldberg Variations. I had the opportunity to talk to Jeffrey about his amazing career and love of music. Jeffrey grew up in Los Angeles and was drawn to music from a very early age. He recalls his parents telling him that he used to play rhythms on a native American drum they used to have in the living room. They purchased a piano for his older brother to start taking lessons. “Allegedly I would hang around and when his lessons were over I would persistently ask if I could have lessons of my own.” That was when Jeffrey was about four, and the rest is history!
Jeffrey has had quite the storied career. At age 14, he was accepted as a scholarship pupil by the great Polish pianist Jakob Gimpel. “I had never been in the presence of a truly great musician before, and although I was totally intimidated, I absorbed some things having to do with music as a vehicle for meaning that have been at the center of my musical existence ever since those early years.” After his sophomore year in high school, he moved up north to begin studying at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. At 24 he placed fourth in the Van Cliburn competition and two years later won the Grand Prize at the Arthur Rubinstein International Piano Master Competition. In the 80s, Jeffrey had the opportunity to play as a rehearsal pianist for Robert Shaw at a choral festival. Jeffrey told me, “That exposure to an artist and human being of that stature, not to mention my first encounters with the very greatest choral masterpieces in the literature, truly changed my life forever.” He has been director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra and Colorado Symphony, among others, and in addition to a busy international touring schedule, he is currently music director of the San Antonio Philharmonic.
Some of Jeffrey’s favorite works include the late sonatas and trios of Schubert, lots of Chopin, almost anything by Bach, the piano concertos of Mozart, and many of the great Schumann piano works. The HDCM performance is going to be a lecture / recital, which will be something different for Central Oregon audiences. I asked Jeffrey if he does these types of performances often and he told me “I have been doing this for decades, especially with the Goldberg Variations which particularly lends itself to this kind of format because of the many fascinating aspects of the way the piece is constructed.”
Join us on Friday, March 7, at 7:30pm at the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Central Oregon for an engaging evening of music and discussion. Doors open at 6:30pm, with the lecture beginning at 7:30pm, followed by a brief intermission and the performance in the second half. This concert is brought to you by Mission Building. Tickets are available through High Desert Chamber Music by phone or online.