Gabriel Kahane

Book of Travelers

The morning after the 2016 election, singer/composer and pianist Gabriel Kahane boarded a train from New York to Chicago, starting a 9,000-mile journey across America. In a climate of national division, Kahane listened to Americans’ stories: their hopes, hardships, and shared moments of faith and resilience.  

From his thirteen-day experience came Book of Travelers, a song cycle for voice and piano that is part personal travel journal, part historical reflection, and part meditation on a fractured nation. Woven with echoes of his grandmother’s cross-country journey after fleeing Germany in 1939, the work’s compositional voice blends classical and folk traditions into a work that is both timely and timeless. 

Everyday American stories become extraordinary when you experience Gabriel Kahane’s poignant, wise, and empathetic Book of Travelers.