Kahane, Still & Copland

The Oregon Symphony is bringing three distinct American voices to the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall from October 23 to 25, 2026, with Music Director and Conductor Jean Vollum leading the way. The program runs about an hour and 45 minutes with one intermission, and it's part of the Sounds Like Portland series, which puts local figures on the stage.

The newest piece is every love song is a protest, a world premiere by Portland singer-songwriter and composer Gabriel Kahane. It's an Oregon Symphony co-commission, and Kahane is a local name who's written for artists as different as Rufus Wainwright, Sufjan Stevens, and Pekka Kuusisto. His father, Jeffrey Kahane, is a pianist and conductor.

Beside that is Aaron Copland's Lincoln Portrait (1942), narrated by Earl Blumenauer. It was commissioned after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and that shift changed the work from Walt Whitman texts to Abraham Lincoln's own words—the Gettysburg Address, the Lincoln-Douglas debates, and a State of the Union address—threaded with folk tunes like "Camptown Races" and "Springfield Mountain."

Rounding it out is William Grant Still's Symphony No. 4 'Autochthonous', written in 1947. Still was the first Black composer to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra and the first Black conductor to lead one. He studied with Edgard Varèse and wrote nine operas.

Between the world premiere, the narrated portrait of Lincoln, and Still's symphony, the night pulls from three different eras of American music. The performances run October 23 through 25 at the Arlene Schnitzer Concert Hall, 1037 SW Broadway, Portland, Oregon 97205.