Jeffrey Kahane

Jeffrey Alan Kahane (born September 12, 1956, in Los Angeles, California) is an American classical concert pianist and conductor. He is music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.

Kahane grew up in West Los Angeles, and began studying piano at age five, and at age 10 began learning to play the guitar. For the next few years, he split his time between his piano studies and playing folk and rock music on the guitar. At age 14, he was accepted as a scholarship pupil by the Polish-born pianist Jakob Gimpel. "I was completely transformed by the contact with him", Kahane said. "There was something that I got from Brahms and Beethoven and Bach that I couldn't live without. And I wanted to make a contribution to keeping it vital and alive."

After his sophomore year of high school, Kahane entered the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He studied piano and conducting, and graduated in 1977. While in San Francisco, he played keyboard instruments in the San Francisco Symphony, explored jazz, and played in the pit for a touring Broadway musical.

Kahane and his wife, Martha, a clinical psychologist in private practice and an avid choral singer, currently divide their time between their homes in Denver, Colorado, and Santa Rosa, California. They have two adult children: Gabriel Kahane, a composer, pianist, and singer living in Brooklyn; and Annie, a choreographer and poet.

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