Brooklyn singer, songwriter and composer Gabriel Kahane writes serious, moody, thematically linked works, with surprising shifts in harmony and phrasing, that he groups together into album-sized chunks (the acclaimed 2014 song cycle “The Ambassador,” for example). He writes these for conventional rock ensembles (guitars, drums) or different configurations of chamber instruments, or just for a solo piano and his own voice.
Brooklyn Rider, meanwhile, a genre-defying string quartet (Michael Nicolas recently replaced longtime cellist Eric Jacobsen), seems unshakable in its belief that good music is good music, regardless of provenance. Recent collaborators include Bela Fleck, Philip Glass, Bad Plus pianist Ethan Iverson and guitarist Bill Frisell.
Catching these Brooklyn musicians together — they’ll be at the University of Hartford’s Millard Auditorium on Thursday, Feb. 4, at 7:30 p.m., performing works by Kahane, Schubert and others — is almost too good to be true. Outside of Brooklyn, anyway. Tickets are $35. Information: hartford.edu.
Editor’s Note: a previous version of this story incorrectly listed the venue as the University of Hartford’s Lincoln Theater.
