James S. Kahane
Conductor
His gestures, with their imperious rigor when necessary, alternates with movements of real sensitivity that seek to link the musical phrases together with flexibility (but also determination), as well as the musicians between them.
Jean Landras - bachtrack.com 2021
James S. Kahane was appointed Musical Director of the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra in Canada in 2024.
He is also principal conductor of the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra and principal conductor of the Orchestre de Chambre de la Drôme.
His album with the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, recently released on the Resonus Classics label, has been hailed as "a colossal album that will inspire generations to come" (The Flute View).
He has conducted many first-class orchestras abroad such as the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse, the Ensemble Miroirs Étendus, the Jyväskylä Sinfonia, the St. Michel Strings and the Pori Sinfonietta.
In the spring of 2024, Kahane was assistant conductor to Hannu Lintu at the Bayerische Staatsoper for their production of Debussy's Pelléas et Mélisande, where he was publicly congratulated by Lintu.
With a wealth of experience in the symphonic and operatic fields, Kahane has conducted productions of operas such as Bizet's The Tragedy of Carmen, Britten's The Rape of Lucretia and Kokkonen's Last Temptations, among others, as well as world premieres of operas such as Kon's Bas Sheve and Tuurna's Years of Silence. He is regularly invited to conduct the Finnish Chamber Opera and has also been conductor at the Helsinki Contemporary Opera Festival on several occasions.
Assistant conductor to Susanna Mälkki at the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra for their 2017/2018 season, he worked alongside her as well as the orchestra's guest conductors, aged just 21 at the time. In 2018, Kristjan Järvi asked him to conduct the Baltic Academies Orchestra in Berlin for their first international tour, and the following year Kahane was invited as conductor-in-residence at the Atlantic Music Festival in the USA, where he worked during the summer of 2019.
Since 2016, James is also the conductor of the Far(away) Ensemble, a modular and multidisciplinary group with which he recorded Jacopo Aliboni's music for the short films "Du Temps Perdu" and "Le Temps Prend Feu", among which the second one was officially selected for the Sarajevo Film Festival, the Cefalù Film Festival, the Guiar Festival as well as the seventy-second Cannes Film Festival.
In 2018, he became conductor of the Finnish Polytechnic Orchestra, following a long line of esteemed conductors including Jorma Panula, Sakari Oramo, Dimitri Slobodeniouk and Eva Ollikainen. In 2019, Kahane contributed to the refounding of the Helsinki Chamber Orchestra, of which he later became principal conductor. In 2023, he was also appointed principal conductor of the Orchestre de chambre de la Drôme in France. In May 2024, the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra announced that James S. Kahane would be its 9th Music Director, starting in the 2024/2025 season.
James S. Kahane was admitted at the age of 19 to the prestigious conducting class at the Sibelius Academy, where he studied with Sakari Oramo, Hannu Lintu and Atso Almila. He was then invited to the Menuhin Festival in Gstaad, to Bernard Haitink's masterclass at the Lucerne Music Festival and to the prestigious Tanglewood Music Festival, and during these years benefited from the teaching of many eminent conductors such as Paavo Järvi, Neeme Järvi, David Zinman, Peter Eötvös, Matthias Pintscher, Sir Roger Norrington, John Storgårds, Mikko Franck, Leif Segerstam, Johannes Schlaefli, Nicolas Pasquet and Jorma Panula.
Kahane is one of the three protagonists of the documentary film "Conductivity", which follows him during his years of study at the Sibelius Academy. The film was released in Finnish cinemas in February 2020.
James S. Kahane has been represented by RSB Artists since 2021.
Management (France)
RSB Artists
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