Photo credit: Miranda Sanborn
Cahill-Myers Duo Perform a Concert Celebrating Living Composers on December 5, 2026
First Performance of the Dresher Ensemble Studio’s 88+ Piano Series
Featuring the World Premiere of Bodywork by Theresa Wong
Plus Music by Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina,
Eleanor Alberga, Meredith Monk, and David Borden
Saturday, December 5, 2026 at 7:30pm
Dresher Ensemble Studio | 2201 Poplar Street | Oakland, CA
Tickets and More Information
www.sarahcahill.com | www.reginamusic.com
Oakland, CA – The Bay Area-based Cahill-Myers Duo – pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers – will perform a concert together featuring the music of five living composers on Saturday, December 5, 2026 at 7:30pm at Dresher Ensemble Studio (2201 Poplar Street). The celebrated pianists have a long history of friendship and musical collaboration, including several past performances at Dresher Ensemble Studio. The lively duo, known for their interpretations of contemporary music for two pianos, will perform a colorful program that includes Canciones para el incendio by Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina, Two Piano Suite by Eleanor Alberga, Folkdance by Meredith Monk, Fool on the Hill Variations by David Borden, and Bodywork by Theresa Wong, which Cahill and Myers previewed at the Mendocino Music Festival earlier this year. This program features the world premiere of the complete work. Theresa Wong and Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina will be in attendance and speak about their works. This is the first performance in the Dresher Ensemble Studio’s new 88+ Piano Series.
The concert centers around Theresa Wong’s Bodywork, a four-hand piece for piano written for and co-commissioned by Cahill and Myers. In her program notes, the composer describes the unconventional work, writing, “[Bodywork] is an homage to ‘caring hands’ with the intention to transform the experience of a health crisis into a ritual of beauty and healing. The two pianists are dressed in ceremonial jumpsuits which take inspiration from hospital and auto mechanic uniforms, and perform body work on the piano through various acts of making sound. The score consists of through-notated components as well as text-based frameworks for improvisation, which are played on the keyboard, inside the piano, and under and around the piano body with the help of auto-mechanic 'creepers', or rollers. The intention is to transform the performance venue into a ritual-like atmosphere.”
Cahill and Myers' program also includes Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina’s Canciones para el incendio for piano with four-hands, which is inspired by the Colombian author Juan Gabriel Vásquez’s short story of the same name and resonates with the themes of Toni Morrison’s novel Paradise. Minimalist composer David Borden’s Fool on the Hill Variations experiments with the 1967 song by The Beatles. Borden transforms the theme through a number of minimalist permutations over its eight variations. Jamaican-born, British composer Eleanor Alberga’s Two Piano Suite is a sprightly one movement work that is as lively and uplifting as is the reason for its composition. Alberga wrote the work to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Jamaica's independence in 1987. Written in 1996, Folkdance embraces the connection between Meredith Monk’s music and the pianists themselves. The work incorporates tangible rhythm keeping through clapping and vocalization in chanting, adding an extra layer of expression unique to each artist who performs it.
For more information about Sarah Cahill visit www.sarahcahill.com.
For more information about Regina Myers visit www.reginamusic.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers of the Cahill-Myers Duo, perform a stylistically diverse program of music by living composers for the first performance in the Dresher Ensemble Studio’s new 88+ Piano Series. The long time friends and Bay Area artists will perform Canciones para el incendio by Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina, Two Piano Suite by Eleanor Alberga, Folkdance by Meredith Monk, Variations on Fool on the Hill by David Borden, and the full world premiere of Bodywork by Theresa Wong. Wong and Ospina will be in attendance and speak about their works.
Concert details:
Who: Cahill-Myers Duo, pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers
Presented by Dresher Ensemble Studio as part of the 88+ Piano Series
What: Music by Juan Sebastian Cardona Ospina, Eleanor Alberga, Meredith Monk, David Borden, and Theresa Wong
When: Saturday, December 5, 2026, at 7:30pm
Where: Dresher Ensemble Studio, 2201 Poplar Street, Oakland, CA 94607
More information: https://dresherensemble.org/event/cahillmyers-duo/