Sept. 5: Pianist Sarah Cahill Records Arlene Sierra’s Birds and Insects: Book 3 – Commissioned by the Barbican Centre for Cahill’s The Future is Female Project

Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski. Available in hi-resolution at jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill

Pianist Sarah Cahill Records Arlene Sierra’s Birds and Insects: Book 3
Commissioned by the Barbican Centre for Cahill’s The Future is Female Project

Worldwide Release Date: September 5, 2025 (Bridge Records)
Press Downloads Available Upon Request

“[Sarah Cahill is] a leading light of the new-music piano scene” – The New York Times

SarahCahill.com | ArleneSierra.com


Pianist Sarah Cahill has recorded Arlene Sierra’s Birds and Insects: Book 3 to be released as part of Sierra’s new Bridge Records album, Birds and Insects, out on September 5, 2025. In addition to Cahill’s recording of Book 3, the new album, which is the fourth volume of Sierra’s work recorded as part of Bridge Records’ Portrait Series, also includes Sierra’s Birds and Insects Books 1 and 2, recorded by Steven Beck.

Sierra's Birds and Insects comprises three books of 5 movements each, composed across a twenty-year period. Like much of her work, it centers on the natural world, addressing the subjects of landscape, evolutionary biology, and the sounds, processes and behavior of birds and insects. Sierra writes, “Each piece features distinct characteristics to fit its title: spelling the name in pitches, employing a transcription of an animal’s song from nature, recalling its physical movement in various ways, or developing ideas drawn from an animal’s cultural symbolism.”

Sierra composed Birds and Insects: Book 3 for Cahill in 2022, commissioned by London’s Barbican Centre as part of Cahill’s The Future is Female project. The Future is Female is Cahill’s ongoing investigation and reframing of the piano literature featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, which she has performed at NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Detroit Institute of Arts, National Gallery of Art, and more. In addition to this recording, Cahill has released three albums of music from The Future is Female on First Hand Records.

Cahill says: “It was an honor to work with Arlene Sierra on these fascinating pieces which she wrote for my project The Future is Female at the Barbican in 2022, and to make the first recording of them. Arlene was inspired by the female Lovely Fairywren and Canyon Wren who sing. She explains that birdsong was always considered the exclusive domain of male birds because they were only studied by male ornithologists, but that recently female ornithologists have proven that female birds sing as well.”

Hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times and “a brilliant and charismatic advocate for modern and contemporary composers” by Time Out New York, Sarah Cahill has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. Keyboard Magazine writes, “Through her inspired interpretation of works across the 20th and 21st centuries, Cahill has been instrumental in bringing to life the music of many of our greatest living composers.” She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).

About Arlene Sierra: www.arlenesierra.com
About Sarah Cahill: www.sarahcahill.com
About Steven Beck: www.stevenbeck.me

Birds and Insects
Release Date (Worldwide): September 5, 2025
Steven Beck, piano; Sarah Cahill, piano
Bridge Records

1-5: Birds and Insects, Book I
Composed by Arlene Sierra; Steven Beck, piano
1. Sarus Crane [2:22]
2. Cornish Bantam [1:45]
3. Cicada Sketch [1:24]
4. Titmouse [1:16]
5. Scarab [8:43]

6-10 Birds and Insects, Book II
Composed by Arlene Sierra; Steven Beck, piano
6. Painted Bunting [1:31]*
7. Hermit Thrush [4:10]*
8. Black and White Warbler [2:48]*
9. Thermometer Cricket [3:08]*
10. Bobolink [11:07]*

11-15 Birds and Insects, Book III
Composed by Arlene Sierra; Sarah Cahill, piano
11. Lovely Fairywren [4:45]*
12. Canyon Wren [2:20]*
13. Great Grig [2:22]*
14. Tawny Owls [2:58]*
15. Troupial [6:20]*

* World premiere recording

Total Time: 56:21

Composer: Arlene Sierra
Executive Producers: Becky and David Starobin
Produced and Engineered by Adam Abeshouse and Doron Schächter
Editor: Ian Striedter
Mix and Mastering Engineer: Ian Striedter
Recorded in South Salem, NY, 2023-24
Annotator: David Beard
Cover Photograph: © Ian Phillips-McLaren
Booklet Photograph: © Ian Phillips-McLaren
Graphic Design: Casey Siu
Arlene Sierra’s music is published by Cecilian Music.

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