Jeffrey Kahane is an American pianist and conductor. As a pianist, Kahane in high demand as an accompanist, and is best known for his work with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. Kahane grew up in West Los Angeles and began study the piano at the age of five. Kahane fell in love with rock & roll at the age of ten, got a guitar, taught himself to play the instrument and joined numerous bands of kids his own age, playing at school dances and writing his own songs. At 15, Kahane was introduced to a new teacher, pianist/composer Jakob Gimpel, who reignited Kahane's love for classical music. Kahane studied piano and conducting at the San Francisco Conservatory and entered the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in 1981. He finished a respectable fourth place, but as this particular competition was nationally televised by PBS, the appearance also amounted to his network broadcast debut, and led to his concert career. In 1983, Kahane won the Artur Rubinstein Competition in Israel, and made his Carnegie Hall debut in a Rubinstein Tribute Concert. Kahane soon became a favored accompanist for Yo-Yo Ma, Dawn Upshaw, and Joshua Bell. In 1987, Kahane was awarded the first Andrew Wolf Chamber Music Award. In the late 1980s, Kahane was invited to perform a Mozart piano concerto and to conduct the work from the keyboard at the Oregon Bach Festival. The success of this appearance opened the door to Kahane's second career as a conductor. In 1991, Kahane founded the Gardner Chamber Orchestra in Boston, a group of young professionals and students in Boston, and led it for four years. In 1995 Kahane was named music director of the Santa Rosa (California) Symphony Orchestra, a well-respected regional orchestra, largely made up of professional musicians from the nearby greater San Francisco area. Kahane held this position until 2006. Kahane and his family continue to live in Santa Rosa and locally he remains the director of the Green Music Festival of Sonoma County. In 1996, Kahane was made music director of the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra (LACO) and helped to bring the already established body into a new era, taking them on world tours and to Carnegie Hall, and in 2006, leading them through the first-ever complete Mozart piano concerto cycle undertaken by an American orchestra. Kahane was also music director of the Colorado Symphony until June 2010. In 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Sonoma State University in recognition of his contributions to education and the arts, and in 2011 he received a master's degree in Classics to add to his accomplishments.