The confines of “singer-songwriter” are too limiting to hold this artist and his searching work. 

Hancher’s composer-in-residence revisits two of his exceptional song cycles in a single day—an opportunity to immerse yourself in Kahane’s lyrically beautiful work and affecting vocals. After the first cycle, Magnificent Bird, the audience will convene in Hancher’s Stanley Café for a community meal inspired by the classic Amtrak diner car meals of the mid-20th century. After dinner, the audience will return to the stage to hear Kahane’s second collection, Book of Travelers. 

Magnificent Bird chronicles a year Kahane spent entirely offline and the unexpected turbulence of living quietly. Book of Travelers recounts the strangers Kahane met on a 9,000-mile train journey through America. Magnificent Bird and Book of Travelers were developed in collaboration with Annie Tippe, who directed the original twin productions at Playwrights Horizons.

Patrons should plan for the full evening with Gabriel Kahane—including Magnificent Bird, a community dinner, and Book of Travelers—to run until approximately 8:00 p.m.

Gabriel Kahane: The 2025-2026 Hancher Composer-In-Residence 

In October 2020, at the end of a year-long internet hiatus, Gabriel Kahane wrote a song each day.  “I wanted to…give myself permission to write about small things, rather than trying to distill the enormity of the moment into grand statements,” he explains. His next project? A searing oratorio about the unhoused called emergency shelter intake form. No moment or idea is too big or too small for his capacious talent to excavate. 

Kahane is a celebrated singer-songwriter, an arranger for Sylvan Esso and Sufjan Stevens, a creator of works for symphony orchestra, and a composer for musical theater. 

Throughout the 2024-2025 season, Kahane will do intensive work with students in the University of Iowa School of Music—including performing with the UI Symphony Orchestra on Friday, February 20, in the Voxman Music Building Concert Hall. Over the course of the season, he will also perform in two concerts at Hancher.