Michael Stern, conductor
Jeffrey Kahane, piano
Ludwig van Beethoven Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus
Gabriel Kahane Heirloom Concerto for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (world premiere and Kansas City Symphony co-commission)
Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 1, "Titan"
After the pandemic year we endured together, this program is a joyful return to Helzberg Hall! In the Greek myth, Prometheus sought to elevate humankind with learning and art. In Beethoven’s Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, you will feel the electricity as Prometheus flees the heavens after stealing fire from the gods.
Heirloom is an aural family scrapbook, exploring the ways in which culture, memory, and trauma are transmitted across generations. In this deeply personal piece, singer-songwriter and composer Gabriel Kahane explores a series of inheritances: the traditions of folk and classical music offered up by his parents; German history and culture, with all of its contradictions and open wounds, passed down by a grandmother who fled Europe in 1938; and, finally, the open-ended bequest of a new father — the composer, himself — filled with awe and wonder upon the birth of his first child.
Mahler’s “Titan” Symphony begins with a single note stretched over seven octaves — the birth of nature — and takes us through a dance of the earth, folk music, country bands, funeral processions and children’s songs, finally arriving at one of the most shattering climaxes in all of music. The human journey on this program will be overwhelming.