Kahane, Still & Copland

Oregon Symphony is bringing a program of modern Americana to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall on November 11 and 12, 2026. Music Director and Conductor David Danzmayr leads the orchestra through three works by Copland, Still and Gabriel Kahane, each pulling from a different thread of American music.

One of those threads is a world premiere. every love song is a protest (2026) is a co-commission by the Oregon Symphony from Gabriel Kahane, a Portland resident and singer-songwriter who's worked with Rufus Wainwright, Sufjan Stevens and Pekka Kuusisto. He'll be on stage himself for the performance, providing both vocals and the composition. Kahane also wrote a piano concerto for his father, the pianist and conductor Jeffrey Kahane.

Alongside the new piece is Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait (1942). It was originally conceived with Walt Whitman texts, but the mood after Pearl Harbor shifted the focus to Abraham Lincoln; it premiered in 1943 and draws on the Gettysburg Address, the Lincoln-Douglas debates and a State of the Union address, threaded with folk tunes like 'Camptown Races' and 'Springfield Mountain'. For this production, Earl Blumenauer will be the narrator.

The third piece is William Grant Still's Symphony No. 4 'Autochthonous' (1947). Still was the first Black composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra, and this one ends with a slow movement he described as rooted in the spirit of the American people.

Between the world premiere, the spoken-word portrait and the symphony, the program spans more than eighty years of American music. The Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, once a grand movie palace, is now Portland's most elegant stage. The performances are November 11 and 12, 2026.