Composer/performer Gabriel Kahane stopped by for the Nonesuch Selects video series, in which artists visit the Nonesuch office, pick some of their favorite albums from the music library, and share a few words on their choices. He chose recordings by Ambrose Akinmusire, Punch Brothers, Sam Amidon, Lorraine Hunt Lieberson, Richard Goode & Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, Fred Hersch, and his father, Jeffrey Kahane.

In celebration of the Playwrights Horizons production of Gabriel Kahane’s Magnificent Bird / Book of Travelers, which opened yesterday, Nonesuch releases a recording of his song “Give Us the Ballot” today. Kahane wrote the song in October 2020, during the final month of a year spent off the internet, at the height of the pandemic. “‘Give Us the Ballot’ was written in October 2020, among the same batch of tunes that led to the album Magnificent Bird,” Kahane says. “With another election on the horizon, I thought this was the best moment to release a song that describes my relationship to voting, at a time when it is easy to become cynical about our sclerotic political landscape.”