Notes from the Fires host John Rabe had a long conversation recently with maestro Jeffrey Kahane, the pianist and former conductor of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra.
Today on Notes from the Fires, meditations on displacement, exile, trauma, history, and music, in the second part of John Rabe’s interview with maestro Jeffrey Kahane - among other things the longtime leader of the LA Chamber Orchestra.
He and his wife Martha’s house is in an Altadena block untouched by the fire, but poisoned by the smoke, so for now, they’re living in Brentwood … a fact he finds deeply moving because it’s where his own mother moved after escaping the Nazi’s (his uncle was temporarily interned at Buchenwald), and because Brentwood and the surrounding communities became home for thousands of German Jewish artists, musicians, directors, actors - the list goes on and on - despised by the Third Reich but welcomed by Hollywood.
Jeffrey Kahane and his beloved Italian Fazioli piano, in his home studio in 2017.
John Rabe
At the end of this piece, we listen to Jeffrey Kahane performing on his debut solo album with some of Bach's Three-Part Inventions.
