February

Product Description

Gabriel Kahane - February House - On the heels of twin world premiere productions at The Public Theater in New York and Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, StorySound Records is proud to release the original cast album of February House by ascendant composer / songwriter / performer Gabriel Kahane. The New York Times raved "Gabriel Kahane has confected nearly two dozen exquisite songs to tell the story of a ragtag Brooklyn Heights town house that once served-ever so fleetingly-as a kind of all-star artists' commune... Kahane, it seems clear, will be one of the artists nudging musical theater in new directions in the 21st Century." The show tells the story of visionary and flamboyant editor George Davis, who transforms a dilapidated Brooklyn boardinghouse into a bohemian commune for a menagrie of leading lights of 1940s New York-W.H. Auden, Carson McCullers, Benjamin Britten, Peter Pears, and Gypsy Rose Lee. The residents create a tumultuous and remarkable makeshift family searching for love, inspiration and refuge from the looming war in Europe. Produced by Gabriel Kahane and Ted Sperling 3 bonus tracks.

Review

Splendid … The music and lyrics, by the (of course) young Brooklyn composer Gabriel Kahane, are sensational. His melodies are both pretty and earthbound, combining orchestral sounds with plenty of folksy banjo. --New York Observer

Strange and dense and heartbreaking, 'February House' will never address an audience of millions, but it has lovely things to say. The musical's towering achievement is how carefully it draws each character's desires. Cumulatively, then, this rich, slow-burning show carries remarkable weight. When it ended, I felt the loss I sometimes feel at the end of a novel, when I don't want an imaginary world to disappear. --National Public Radio

Bolstered by a series of complex, moving songs by Gabriel Kahane that sound like a melding of Steven Sondheim and Sufjan Stevens, the musical skips deftly from contrapuntal dissonance to an open-air folksiness that itself is a fascinating counterpoint to the cultured subject matter. It's Kahane's musc and exceptional lyrics that carry the production into the sublime. --Entertainment Weekly Online