Pianist Sarah Cahill Announces Fall 2021 Bay Area Performances
October 10: Duo Performance with Regina Myers at The Dresher Ensemble Studio
In-Person only
October 28: Performance of “Le Gibet” from Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit Presented by Ross McKee Foundation
Virtual Only
October 30: The Future is Female at Mills College
In-Person and Virtual
December 18: The Future is Female at BAMPFA
In-Person Only
Plus Radio Broadcast Premiere Performances with San Francisco Girls Chorus on KALW
Pianist Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, announces her schedule of fall 2021 events in the Bay Area. Performance highlights include works for two pianos and piano four-hands with Regina Myers at the Dresher Ensemble Studio; solo performances of her project The Future is Female, at Mills College on the Mills Music Now series and at BAMPFA; and a virtual performance of “Le Gibet” from Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit, presented by the Ross McKee Foundation on its fundraiser, Devilish Inspirations.
In addition, recordings of Cahill with the San Francisco Girls Chorus performing Theresa Wong’s In Stillness I Sing will have radio broadcast premieres on KALW’s “Revolutions Per Minute” on October 17, November 21, and December 5. The programs will stream live at 6pm PT at www.kalw.org. In Stillness I Sing was commissioned by SFGC and will have its live world premiere performance in March 2022. More information at www.sfgirlschorus.org/performances.
Sunday, October 10 at 4pm PT, Cahill and Myers team up for a performance entitled This Same Temple, featuring works for two pianos and piano four hands at The Dresher Ensemble Studio in West Oakland. The exact address will be made available after ticket purchase. This concert celebrates the recent donation of a 1935 Baldwin concert grand piano to the studio, given by Cahill, who donated this piano after composer Terry Riley gave her his beloved Mason & Hamlin.
Meredith Monk (b. 1942): Ellis Island (1981)
Paul Dresher (b. 1951): This Same Temple (1976-77)
Eleanor Alberga (b. 1949): Three-Day Mix (1991)
Lou Harrison (1917-2003): Festival Dance (West Coast premiere) (1951)
Frederic Rzewski (1938-2021): Winnsboro Cotton Mill Blues (1980)
In-Person only. Tickets and more information available at www.dresherensemble.org/community-programs/in-studio-performances
Thursday, October 28 at 7pm PT, Cahill performs “Le Gibet” from Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit (1908) as part of the Ross McKee Foundation’s Fundraiser, Devilish Inspirations, a virtual tour of the piano repertoire's most haunting moments. Featuring new music videos created by Bay Area pianists, the program focuses on works inspired by the devil and other spooky Halloween themes while hosts Edwin Outwater (Music Director, San Francisco Conservatory of Music) and Peaches Christ (horror icon and owner of Into the Dark: Terror Vault) provide historical context, witty repartee, and a touch of ghoulish glamour.
Proceeds from ticket sales and donations to this fundraiser benefit the Ross McKee Foundation, an organization that has supported Bay Area pianists with over $2.5 million in grants, scholarships, and its piano competition for young artists since its inception in 1989.
Virtual only. Complete program information and tickets available by donation at www.givebutter.com/devilishinspirations
Saturday, October 30 at 8pm PT, Cahill performs an evening-length program with selections from her project The Future is Female. Presented by the Mills College Music Department and Center for Contemporary Music’s Mills Music Now series, Cahill’s repertoire focuses on composers who have been students or teachers at Mills College.
Elinor Armer (b. 1939): Thaw (1975)
Maggi Payne (b. 1945): Holding Pattern (2001)
Janice Giteck (b. 1946): Tara's Love Will Melt the Sword (2002)
Pauline Oliveros (1932-2016): Quintuplets Play Pen (2001)
Theresa Wong (b. 1976): She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees (2019)
Mary Watkins (b. 1939): Summer Days (2020)
Meredith Monk (b. 1942): St. Petersburg Waltz (1997)
Betsy Jolas (b. 1926): Tango Si (1984)
Annea Lockwood (b. 1939): RCSC (2020)
In-Person and Virtual. Tickets and more information available at www.performingarts.mills.edu/2021/10/cahill.php
Saturday, December 18, Cahill presents a seven-hour marathon performance of The Future is Female at BAMPFA in the Crane Forum just inside the museum’s entrance. Cahill will perform over 70 pieces by female composers, from the Baroque era to now, to coincide with the current exhibition, New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century. Organized by BAMPFA curator Apsara DiQuinzio, this expansive exhibition — one of the largest in the museum’s recent history — presents over 140 works, in a wide range of media and genres, by a diverse, international lineup of 76 established and emerging artists and artist collectives, of all genders, who have advanced the evolution of contemporary feminist art.
In-Person only. More information to be announced at www.bampfa.org/program/new-time-art-and-feminisms-21st-century
About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, recently called “a brilliant and charismatic advocate for modern and contemporary composers” by Time Out New York, has commissioned and premiered over sixty compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Yoko Ono, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).
Cahill’s recent and upcoming streaming speaking engagements have included a two-day discussion presented by the Boulanger Initiative, The Future is Female: In Conversation and Performance (watch online); a Piano Talk presented by the Ross McKee Foundation titled Challenging the Canon (watch online); a panel presented by American Composers Forum on Advocating for Gender Equity; three webinars presented by the San Francisco Symphony, including Five Composers You Should Know (Who Happen to be Women) (November 10); and At Home with Sarah Cahill a workshop presented by Amateur Music Network, where Cahill spoke about her life in new music and performed a short concert (watch online).
Her previous streamed performances during the pandemic have included the Bang on a Can Marathon in June 2020, a concert presented by Harrison House in Joshua Tree as part of Cahill’s residency there (watch online); a Piano Break recital presented by the Ross McKee Foundation, featuring the world premiere of Regina Harris Baiocchi’s Piano Poems, inspired by poetry by Gwendolyn Brooks and Richard Wright (watch online); a faculty performance at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, featuring the world premiere of Up for two pianos by Riley Nicholson, performed with Regina Myers (watch online); as well as appearances streamed by Musaics of the Bay, Old First Concerts, SFSymphony+, and Community School of Music and Arts.
The first episode of At Home With Sarah Cahill captures an afternoon of musical storytelling filmed at her home in Berkeley. Cahill performs Vítězslava Kaprálová’s Preludes 1 and 3 (1937) and Amy Beach’s Dreaming (1892), and shares the compelling background of the works and the composers. She performs the two works on Terry Riley’s historic Mason & Hamlin piano, which had just arrived a few days before as a gift from Riley. Additional footage of Cahill speaking in her garden about her home and life in Berkeley is available here.
Recent appearances include the Interlochen Arts Festival, the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Boston Institute for Contemporary Art, a performance at Alice Tully Hall with the Silk Road Ensemble, Stanford Live, Le Poisson Rouge, and concerts at San Francisco Performances, Sacramento State’s Festival of New American Music, the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival in the United Kingdom, and Toyusu Civic Center Hall in Tokyo. Cahill’s latest project is The Future is Female, featuring more than sixty compositions by women around the globe, ranging from the 18th century to the present day. Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts presented by The Barbican, Carolina Performing Arts, 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, and Mayville State University.
Sarah Cahill’s discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Other Minds, Tzadik, Albany, Cold Blue, Other Minds, and Pinna labels. In September 2017, she released Eighty Trips Around the Sun: Music by and for Terry Riley, a box set tribute to Terry Riley, on Irritable Hedgehog Records. The four-CD set includes solo works by Riley, four-hand works with pianist Regina Myers, and world premiere recordings of commissioned works composed in honor of Riley’s 80th birthday. Her latest release is Lou Harrison’s Concerto for Piano with Javanese Gamelan recorded with Gamelan Galak Tika, released by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 2021.
Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8 pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory. For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.