March 1 & 4: Pianist Sarah Cahill Performs Two Concerts in Westerville and Visits Otterbein University for Artist Residency
Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski available in high-resolution at jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill
Pianist Sarah Cahill Performs Two Concerts in Westerville
and Visits Otterbein University for Artist Residency
Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto with the Westerville Symphony
Conducted by Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson
Sunday, March 1, 2026 at 5pm
Fritsche Theatre at Cowan Hall | 30 S. Grove St. | Westerville, OH
Tickets and More Information
The Woods So Wild – A Concert Inspired by Nature at Otterbein University
Wednesday, March 4, 2026 at 7:30pm
Riley Auditorium in Battelle Fine Arts Center | 170 W. Park Street | Westerville, OH
Free and Open to the Public | More Information
Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert
Westerville, OH – Bay Area-based pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, comes to Westerville in March for two performances and a residency at Otterbein University. On Sunday, March 1, 2026 at 5pm, she will be the featured soloist with the Westerville Symphony conducted by Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson, performing Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto at Fritsche Theatre at Cowan Hall (30 S. Grove St.). On Wednesday, March 4, 2026 at 7:30pm, she will perform her solo program The Woods So Wild in a free concert at the Battelle Fine Arts Center in Riley Auditorium (170 W. Park Street), presented by Otterbein University. In addition, while at Otterbein University, she will lead a masterclass and a lecture titled Reframing the Classical Canon focused on the inclusion of more works by women composers.
Sarah Cahill worked with prolific American composer Lou Harrison (1917–2003), a figure who greatly influenced the character of music in the 20th century, on several of his scores and is a staunch advocate of his music. Harrison was celebrated for his embrace of alternative tunings, musical traditions from around the world, and unconventional instruments. His Piano Concerto was composed for jazz/classical pianist Keith Jarrett from 1983 to 1985, and is unique in that the piano is retuned using an entirely different system – the black keys are tuned to a medieval system of exact intervals of fourths and fifths, and the white keys are tuned in a system common in the Renaissance and Baroque. Cahill has been performing this monumental concerto for the last twenty years. Watch her give an overview of the piece and perform selections from it here.
Cahill’s solo concert program The Woods So Wild features expressive works reflective of nature’s beauty. Forests, oceans, desert, mountains, flowers, grasslands, wilderness – throughout music’s history, composers have celebrated nature and the great outdoors. As humanity urgently strives to preserve this precious environment, reflecting on nature through music heightens society’s attention to its great wonders. In this concert, beginning with William Byrd’s The Woods So Wild from 1590, Sarah Cahill takes listeners on a wondrous journey through musical portraits of the natural world including Forest Scenes by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, A Morning in the Woods by Leo Ornstein, Murmur of the Wheat from Au sein de la nature by Leokadiya Kashperova, Hermit Thrush at Eve by Amy Beach, Patterns of Plants by Mamoru Fujieda, and The Mysterious Forest by Erkki Melartin.
About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, 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. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).
Cahill’s latest project is The Future is Female, an investigation and reframing of the piano literature featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works. Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts at The Barbican, Metropolitan Museum, Carolina Performing Arts, National Gallery of Art, Carlsbad Music Festival, Detroit Institute of Arts, University of Iowa, Bowling Green New Music Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, North Dakota Museum of Art, Mayville State University, the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York, and the Newport Classical Music Festival. Cahill also performed music from The Future is Female for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert series.
Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Her three-album series, The Future is Female, was released on First Hand Records between March 2022 and April 2023. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe, from the 17th century to the present day, and include many world premiere recordings.
Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, performs as a featured soloist with the Westerville Symphony, conducted by Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson, on March 1, 2026 at 5pm. Cahill will perform Lou Harrison’s Piano Concerto. The evening’s program will also include Gustav Holst’s Japanese Suite, and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7 in C Major.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill
Presented by Westerville Symphony, Conducted by Music Director Peter Stafford Wilson
What: Lou Harrsion’s Piano Concerto, Gustav Holst’s Japanese Suite, and Jean Sibelius’s Symphony No. 7 in C Major
When: Sunday, March 1, 2026 at 5pm
Where: Fritsche Theatre at Cowan Hall, 30 S Grove St, Westerville, OH 43081
More information: westervillesymphony.org/event-details/masterworks-ii
Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as a “keen and captivating pianist” by The Washington Post, brings her program The Woods So Wild, an array of expressive works that reflect the beauty of nature, to Otterbein University. The concert will include works by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mamoru Fujieda, William Byrd, Errki Melartin, Amy Beach, Leo Ornstein and Leokadiya Kashperova. The performance is free and open to the public.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill in The Woods So Wild
Presented by Otterbein University
What: Music by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Mamoru Fujieda, William Byrd, Errki Melartin, Amy Beach, Leo Ornstein and Leokadiya Kashperova.
When: Wednesday, March 4, 2026 at 7:30pm
Where: Riley Auditorium in Battelle Fine Arts Center, 170 W. Park Street, Westerville, OH 43081
Free and Open to the Public
More information: www.otterbein.edu/music/events/#spring