Jack Gabel's work can be heard
on the North Pacific Music recordings:

Turtle Island Dreams ~ Turtle Island Dances

Shakuhachi Banquet

Passion

Dog Star

Jack Gabel - Spring Quartet and selected works for strings
performed by fEARnoMUSIC

To hear audio samples of other works from Gabel's catalog, click the appropriate streaming media type:

Click an image to download a free player:

Akademische Fantasie Variationen   (excerpt)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Auto-Mobile   (excerpt)
Baker, Moyer, Walters (1981)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Etude de la Saison   (excerpt)
Falconer from "Water Colors"
SBR0018 (2000)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Equinox from Passiones   (excerpt)
for Nomadas del sol, dance company (2001)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Conflagration & Queen of Peace   (excerpt)
for Katja Biesanz Dance Theater (1998)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Hopi Flute Song   (excerpt)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

In The Land of Wu   (excerpt)
ORS & VDR (1991)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Lion Hunt Dream   (excerpt)
JWSQ (1993)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Maliseet Love Song & Dance   (excerpt)
BDSWO (1990)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Sounding the Furies  (excerpt)
Bergeron (1997)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Whale Hunt Dream   (excerpt)
Selisian Philharmonic
Karen Dreyfus (solo viola)
Jerzy Svoboda (conducting)
MMC2079 (2000)

Media
Player

Real
Audio

Real Audio
Broad Band

Diameter IX
Agnieszka Laska Dancers (2003)

Real
Video

Real Video
Broad Band

Voices and Echos
Agnieszka Laska Dancers (2003)
Trio Spektrum (excerpt)

Real Video
Broad Band

Adagio
Spring quartet (excerpt)
Agnieszka Laska Dancers (2004)

Real Audio
dial-up

Real Audio
broad-band

QuickTime Video
Broad Band

Hera's Wrath
Hellenic Triptych (excerpt)
Agnieszka Laska Dancers (2004)

QuickTime Video
Broad Band

Echo's Farewell
Hellenic Triptych (excerpt)
Agnieszka Laska Dancers (2004)

QuickTime Video
Broad Band

Jack Gabel, (b. 1949 -) presently lives in Portland, Oregon. He has traveled extensively, throughout Europe, Africa and Asia and worked many summers as a commercial fisherman in Alaska.

Jack Gabel has written numerous concert hall works for many different combinations of instruments and voices, with and without electroacoustic accompaniments and/or enhancements. He also creates mixed-media works alone and with collaborators, using musique concrete and poetry, frequently his own, some of which has been published apart from its use in contemporary performance pieces and more traditional settings for singers.

Though classically trained with composers Derek Healey, Tomas Svoboda and poet Ralph Salisbury, Gabel recounts as his most memorable musical experience, the impromptu jam session he had with an Afghan tribesman in a Herat tea house in 1972 -- the composer on mouth organ and the local talent holding forth on his handmade, rough-hewn, 3-string lute. The two miraculously found a common modality straight away and carried on for several hours. "No concert-hall premiere or recording session can to date compare," adds the composer, "nor likely ever will."

Today, Gabel's work is infused with widely varied ethnic and ancient colors and motives, most notably those of the ancient, native cultures of North America.

His 1997 article on electronic music for the All Music Guide can be found at www.allmusic.com

In addition to his NPM releases, Jack Gabel's discography includes

Whale Hunt Dream on the MMC (2000) release Viola Concertos, Vol. II by Karen Dreyfus with the Silesian Philharmonic, Jerzy Svoboda conducting

Etude de la Saison for solo koto, by Elizabeth Falconer on the Sparkling Beatnik (2000) release, Water Colors

Auto-Mobile from original poetry for tenor sax, processed string bass and narrator/percussionist on a percussion battery infused with junked car parts, on the The Third Angle New Music Ensemble's Gagliano Records (1999) release, The Junkyard Concert

"...intriguingly brainy yet intensely heartfelt Portland composer..." -- Grant Menzies, Willamette Week

"...Gabel's appealing work sounded like no one else's... a unique and valuable Northwest voice."
-- Brett Campbell, Eugene Weekly

"Gabel's voice is distinct...style: a broad lyricism, nuanced electronics, New Age moodiness, modernist roots and humor."
-- David Stabler, The Oregonian

"...the aural ecstasy of Turtle Island...One of the most original and challenging CDs I've heard all year...a dreamtime journey that is as contemplative as it is hallucinatory."
-- Matthew Moon, Crossroads

" Hellenic Triptych... hails from another musical world... epitomizes imagination and courage..."
-- Eleonora M. Beck, Sforzando

" In the Land of Wu...a remarkably quieting piece, it has an affecting sense of great emotional space."
-- John Duffy, Choral Magazine

" Whale Hunt Dream... evocative, mysterious tone poem of considerable beauty."
-- David W. Moore, The American Record Guide