The Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival has selected noted composer Gabriel Kahane as the Composer in Residence for their twelfth season, Aug. 18 to 29.

Kahane has an impressive background of singing, composing, and performing music in a variety of venues across the United States and Europe. In the fall of 2008, he released his self-titled debut, heralded by Prefix magazine as “music for the ears, the intellect and the soul, and an auspicious debut LP from one of the most prodigious talents we’ve got.”

He is best-known for his 2006 “Craigslistlieder,” an eight movement song cycle which comprises settings of anonymous classified ads from craigslist.org. The piece has been performed in venues ranging from the bars of the Lower East Side to a Carnegie Hall recital by critically-acclaimed baritone Thomas Meglioranza.

This year, Kahane premiered three concert works: “For the Union Dead,” a chamber song cycle based on poems by Robert Lowell, “Django: Tiny Variations on a Big Dog,” a solo piano work by his father concert pianist Jeffrey Kahane, and the “Piano Sonata,” written for Natasha Paremski.

The West Coast Premiere of “For the Union Dead” will occur during the Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival’s concerts on August 21 and 22.

Tickets are still available for many of the festival concerts. Each concert has both a 5 and a 7:30 p.m. start time. Main series concert tickets are $30 and tickets for Mark O’Connor’s solo recital during the Orcas-trations concerts are $38 each. For more information and to purchase tickets call 376-2281.