Sarah Cahill (pianist)
Encyclopedia
Sarah Cahill an American pianist born in Washington, D.C., is a long-time resident of Berkeley
, California. She is best known for performances of new works, many of them written for her. Cahill has also established a reputation as a writer on music and as a radio-show host.
, Walter Gieseking
and Clara Haskil
. Cahill began her formal piano studies at the age of six, and at seven she began studying with Sharon Mann. By twelve she was performing concertos with several local orchestras. At sixteen she was invited to Sommermusikwochen, a chamber music festival in Trogen, Switzerland where she played Bach
’s D major Toccata. Skipping her final year of high school she went directly to the San Francisco Conservatory
where Adams composed China Gates
for her. She finished her academic studies at the University of Michigan
where she continued her musical training with Theodore Lettvin
.
Cahill has written music reviews for Gramophone Explorations, Historical Performance, ClassicsToday.com, Grove’s Dictionary and other international publications, and liner notes for recordings by John Adams, Terry Riley
, and others. In 1985 she became the music critic for the East Bay Express
and has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle
, the Village Voice Literary Supplement, and others.
’ China Gates
, Frederic Rzewski
’s Snippets 2, Pauline Oliveros
’ Quintuplets Play Pen, and Kyle Gann
's Private Dances and On Reading Emerson. She has also premiered works by Lou Harrison
, Terry Riley
, Evan Ziporyn
, Julia Wolfe
, Ingram Marshall
, Ursula Mamlok
, George Lewis
, Leo Ornstein
and many others.
In late 2008 and 2009 Cahill developed and performed a new project known under two titles A Sweeter Music, and Notes on the War: The Piano Protests, where she asked composers for piano music on the subject of peace. The second title was printed in the New York Times, but was not Cahill's original title. Commissioned composers include Preben Antonsen, Michael Byron, Paul Dresher
, Ingram Marshall
, Jerome Kitzke
, Mamoru Fujieda
, Kyle Gann
, Peter Garland
, Phil Kline
, Jerome Kitzke
, Meredith Monk
, Pauline Oliveros
, Yoko Ono
, Larry Polansky
, Bernice Johnson Reagon
, The Residents
, Terry Riley
, Frederic Rzewski
and Carl Stone
. In later performances of A Sweeter Music Cahill's spouse John Sanborn contributed video content to accompany the music, displayed across three screens and synchronized to the performance.
Projects developed previously by Cahill include Playdate, a group of commissioned pieces about childhood combined with classical works; the commission of an evening of new scores for four hands by Terry Riley
, performed with pianist Joseph Kubera; and a concert of recent Italian music, featuring premieres by Luciano Chessa
, Andrea Morricone, and others.
Another of Cahill's projects is Bay Area Pianists, an organization she founded in 1993. In 1996, in association with New Music Bay Area, Cahill created the annual Garden of Memory walk-through concert at the Julia Morgan
-designed Chapel of the Chimes
wherein audience members move through the environment with new music ensembles performing simultaneously throughout the spaces. In 2003 she co-curated the Berkeley Edge Fest at Cal Performances.
As a radio personality Cahill has hosted weekly radio shows on the classical and contemporary music scenes on both KPFA
94.1FM in Berkeley
, where her program was cited as "One of the 100 Best Things in the Bay Area" by Citysearch magazine, and on KALW
91.7FM in San Francisco.
Cahill investigated the impact early 20th-century American modernists had on the composers of her time and explored these influences in concert programs at the Miller Theater at Columbia University
, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, Galapagos Art Space in New York City, Spoleto Festival USA
, the Phillips Collection
, the Freer Gallery (part of the Smithsonian Piano 300 gala), and at the Other Minds
festival in San Francisco. She has also performed at the Nuovi Spazi Musicali festival at the American Academy in Rome, the Santa Fe New Music Series, and at the Pacific Crossings Festival in Tokyo, Japan.
Cahill is married to the filmmaker John Sanborn; together they are raising their daughter Miranda.
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, California. She is best known for performances of new works, many of them written for her. Cahill has also established a reputation as a writer on music and as a radio-show host.
Background
Born into a musical and academic family in Washington, D.C., at the age of five Sarah Cahill moved to California when her father, James Cahill became Professor of Chinese Art History at U. C. Berkeley. Her father owned an extensive collection of records, including rare historical recordings of composers and pianists such as Stravinsky, Prokofiev, Bartok, Artur SchnabelArtur Schnabel
Artur Schnabel was an Austrian classical pianist, who also composed and taught. Schnabel was known for his intellectual seriousness as a musician, avoiding pure technical bravura...
, Walter Gieseking
Walter Gieseking
Walter Wilhelm Gieseking was a French-born German pianist and composer.-Biography:Born in Lyon, France, the son of a German doctor and lepidopterist, Gieseking first started playing the piano at the age of four, but without formal instruction...
and Clara Haskil
Clara Haskil
Clara Haskil was a Romanian classical pianist, renowned as an interpreter of the classical and early romantic repertoire....
. Cahill began her formal piano studies at the age of six, and at seven she began studying with Sharon Mann. By twelve she was performing concertos with several local orchestras. At sixteen she was invited to Sommermusikwochen, a chamber music festival in Trogen, Switzerland where she played Bach
Bạch
Bạch is a Vietnamese surname. The name is transliterated as Bai in Chinese and Baek, in Korean.Bach is the anglicized variation of the surname Bạch.-Notable people with the surname Bạch:* Bạch Liêu...
’s D major Toccata. Skipping her final year of high school she went directly to the San Francisco Conservatory
San Francisco Conservatory of Music
San Francisco Conservatory of Music, formerly the California Conservatory of Music, founded in 1917, is a music school, with an enrollment of about 400 students. It was launched by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodgehead in the remodeled home of Lillian's parents on Sacramento Street. It was called the...
where Adams composed China Gates
China Gates
China Gates is a short piano piece composed by the minimalist American composer John Adams in 1977. Adams wrote this work as a companion piece to his Phrygian Gates, dating from the same period...
for her. She finished her academic studies at the University of Michigan
University of Michigan
The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...
where she continued her musical training with Theodore Lettvin
Theodore Lettvin
Theodore Lettvin was an American concert pianist and conductor.Lettvin's first concert was at the age of 5 at the Lyon & Healy in Chicago. At age 11 he appeared as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under conductor Frederik Stock...
.
Cahill has written music reviews for Gramophone Explorations, Historical Performance, ClassicsToday.com, Grove’s Dictionary and other international publications, and liner notes for recordings by John Adams, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, and others. In 1985 she became the music critic for the East Bay Express
East Bay Express
The East Bay Express is an Oakland-based weekly newspaper serving the Berkeley, Oakland, and East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area...
and has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, the Village Voice Literary Supplement, and others.
Biography
Cahill is a renowned performer of new American music who has commissioned, premiered and recorded numerous works for solo piano. Compositions dedicated to her include John AdamsJohn Coolidge Adams
John Coolidge Adams is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer with strong roots in minimalism. His best-known works include Short Ride in a Fast Machine , On the Transmigration of Souls , a choral piece commemorating the victims of the September 11, 2001 attacks , and Shaker...
’ China Gates
China Gates
China Gates is a short piano piece composed by the minimalist American composer John Adams in 1977. Adams wrote this work as a companion piece to his Phrygian Gates, dating from the same period...
, Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
’s Snippets 2, Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
’ Quintuplets Play Pen, and Kyle Gann
Kyle Gann
Kyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...
's Private Dances and On Reading Emerson. She has also premiered works by Lou Harrison
Lou Harrison
Lou Silver Harrison was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. P. H. Notoprojo Lou Silver Harrison...
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Evan Ziporyn
Evan Ziporyn
Evan Ziporyn is an American composer of post-minimalist music and music for Balinese gamelans. He plays the clarinet, bass clarinet, saxophone, and metallophone, borrowing from classical music, avant-garde, and jazz...
, Julia Wolfe
Julia Wolfe
Julia Wolfe is an American composer. She was born in Philadelphia, holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Princeton and Yale, and currently works in New York. Wolfe's music is rhythmically vigorous and often clangorously dissonant...
, Ingram Marshall
Ingram Marshall
Ingram Marshall is an American composer and a former student of Vladimir Ussachevsky and Morton Subotnick. Son of Bernice Douglas and Harry Reinhard Marshall, Sr. He was a talented soprano in the Boy's Choir at the Mt. Vernon Community Church, and was influenced early by noted music instructor,...
, Ursula Mamlok
Ursula Mamlok
Ursula Mamlok is a German-born, American composer and teacher.-Education and influences:Mamlok was born as Ursula Meyer in Berlin, Germany and studied piano and composition with Professor Gustav Ernest and Emily Weissgerber until her family fled Nazi Germany following the nationwide pogrom in 1938...
, George Lewis
George Lewis
George Lewis may refer to:*George Lowys or Lewis , mayor of Winchelsea*George Lewis , track and field athlete from Trinidad and Tobago*George Lewis , New Orleans jazz clarinettist...
, Leo Ornstein
Leo Ornstein
Leo Ornstein was a leading American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century...
and many others.
In late 2008 and 2009 Cahill developed and performed a new project known under two titles A Sweeter Music, and Notes on the War: The Piano Protests, where she asked composers for piano music on the subject of peace. The second title was printed in the New York Times, but was not Cahill's original title. Commissioned composers include Preben Antonsen, Michael Byron, Paul Dresher
Paul Dresher
Paul Joseph Dresher is an American composer. Dresher received his B.A. in music from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.A. in composition from the University of California, San Diego, where he studied with Robert Erickson, Roger Reynolds, Pauline Oliveros, and Bernard Rands.He also...
, Ingram Marshall
Ingram Marshall
Ingram Marshall is an American composer and a former student of Vladimir Ussachevsky and Morton Subotnick. Son of Bernice Douglas and Harry Reinhard Marshall, Sr. He was a talented soprano in the Boy's Choir at the Mt. Vernon Community Church, and was influenced early by noted music instructor,...
, Jerome Kitzke
Jerome Kitzke
Jerome Kitzke is a composer who grew up along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.-History:He received his B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and moved to New York City in 1984. In 1992 Kitzke formed his performing group Mad Coyote...
, Mamoru Fujieda
Mamoru Fujieda
is a Japanese composer associated with the postminimalist movement of contemporary classical music.He received a Ph.D. in music from the University of California, San Diego in 1988...
, Kyle Gann
Kyle Gann
Kyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...
, Peter Garland
Peter Garland
Peter Garland is a composer best known for publishing Soundings Press, one of the few sources of new music scores and articles while in print...
, Phil Kline
Phil Kline
Phil Kline is an American composer. After graduating from Columbia University with a degree in English Literature, he formed the New York No Wave band The Del-Byzanteens in the early 1980s with filmmaker Jim Jarmusch and painter James Nares, collaborated with photographer Nan Goldin on the...
, Jerome Kitzke
Jerome Kitzke
Jerome Kitzke is a composer who grew up along the southwestern shore of Lake Michigan in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.-History:He received his B.F.A. from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, and moved to New York City in 1984. In 1992 Kitzke formed his performing group Mad Coyote...
, Meredith Monk
Meredith Monk
Meredith Jane Monk is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer. Since the 1960s, Monk has created multi-disciplinary works which combine music, theatre, and dance, recording extensively for ECM Records.-Life and work:Meredith Monk is primarily known for her...
, Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros
Pauline Oliveros is an American accordionist and composer who is a central figure in the development of post-war electronic art music....
, Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono
is a Japanese artist, musician, author and peace activist, known for her work in avant-garde art, music and filmmaking as well as her marriage to John Lennon...
, Larry Polansky
Larry Polansky
Larry Polansky is a composer, guitarist, mandolinist, and a professor at Dartmouth College. He is a founding member and co-director of . He co-wrote HMSL with Phil Burk and David Rosenboom....
, Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon
Bernice Johnson Reagon is a singer, composer, scholar, and social activist, who founded the a cappella ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1973.-Early life and education:...
, The Residents
The Residents
The Residents is an American art collective best known for avant-garde music and multimedia works. The first official release under the name of The Residents was in 1972, and the group has since released over sixty albums, numerous music videos and short films, three CD-ROM projects and ten DVDs....
, Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Rzewski
Frederic Anthony Rzewski is an American composer and virtuoso pianist.- Biography :Rzewski began playing piano at age 5. He attended Phillips Academy, Harvard and Princeton, where his teachers included Randall Thompson, Roger Sessions, Walter Piston and Milton Babbitt...
and Carl Stone
Carl Stone
Carl Stone is an American composer, primarily working in the field of live electronic music. His works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the Near East.Stone studied composition at the California Institute of the Arts with Morton...
. In later performances of A Sweeter Music Cahill's spouse John Sanborn contributed video content to accompany the music, displayed across three screens and synchronized to the performance.
Projects developed previously by Cahill include Playdate, a group of commissioned pieces about childhood combined with classical works; the commission of an evening of new scores for four hands by Terry Riley
Terry Riley
Terrence Mitchell Riley, is an American composer intrinsically associated with the minimalist school of Western classical music and was a pioneer of the movement...
, performed with pianist Joseph Kubera; and a concert of recent Italian music, featuring premieres by Luciano Chessa
Luciano Chessa
Luciano Chessa is a composer, performer, and musicologist.As a composer, conductor, pianist, and musical saw / Vietnamese dan bau soloists, Luciano Chessa has been active in Europe, the U.S., and Australia...
, Andrea Morricone, and others.
Another of Cahill's projects is Bay Area Pianists, an organization she founded in 1993. In 1996, in association with New Music Bay Area, Cahill created the annual Garden of Memory walk-through concert at the Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan
Julia Morgan was an American architect. The architect of over 700 buildings in California, she is best known for her work on Hearst Castle in San Simeon, California...
-designed Chapel of the Chimes
Chapel of the Chimes (Oakland, California)
Chapel of the Chimes was founded in 1909 as a crematory and columbarium in Oakland, California. The present building dates largely from a 1928 redevelopment based on the designs of the architect Julia Morgan. The Moorish- and Gothic-inspired interior is a maze of small rooms featuring ornate...
wherein audience members move through the environment with new music ensembles performing simultaneously throughout the spaces. In 2003 she co-curated the Berkeley Edge Fest at Cal Performances.
As a radio personality Cahill has hosted weekly radio shows on the classical and contemporary music scenes on both KPFA
KPFA
KPFA is a listener-funded progressive talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station signed on-the-air April 15 1949, as the first Pacifica Station...
94.1FM in Berkeley
Berkeley, California
Berkeley is a city on the east shore of the San Francisco Bay in Northern California, United States. Its neighbors to the south are the cities of Oakland and Emeryville. To the north is the city of Albany and the unincorporated community of Kensington...
, where her program was cited as "One of the 100 Best Things in the Bay Area" by Citysearch magazine, and on KALW
KALW
KALW is a public radio station based in San Francisco, California. Its HD FM radio signal is broadcast over the immediate San Francisco Bay Area at 91.7 MHz, and is webcast with live streaming audio.-Background:...
91.7FM in San Francisco.
Cahill investigated the impact early 20th-century American modernists had on the composers of her time and explored these influences in concert programs at the Miller Theater at Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, Galapagos Art Space in New York City, Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA
Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, South Carolina, is one of the world's major performing arts festivals. It was founded in 1977 by Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Gian Carlo Menotti, who sought to establish a counterpart to the Festival dei Due Mondi in Spoleto, Italy...
, the Phillips Collection
Phillips Collection
The Phillips Collection is an art museum founded by Duncan Phillips in 1921 as the Phillips Memorial Gallery located in the Dupont Circle neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Phillips was the grandson of James H...
, the Freer Gallery (part of the Smithsonian Piano 300 gala), and at the Other Minds
Other Minds
Other Minds is a San Francisco based private 501 not-for-profit organization, founded in 1992 by Charles Amirkhanian and Jim Newman...
festival in San Francisco. She has also performed at the Nuovi Spazi Musicali festival at the American Academy in Rome, the Santa Fe New Music Series, and at the Pacific Crossings Festival in Tokyo, Japan.
Cahill is married to the filmmaker John Sanborn; together they are raising their daughter Miranda.
Selected discography
- MiroirsMiroirsMiroirs, or "Reflections" is a suite for solo piano written by French impressionist composer Maurice Ravel between 1904 and 1905. First performed by Ricardo Viñes in 1906, Miroirs contains five movements, each dedicated to a fellow member of the French impressionist group, Les...
and Gaspard de la NuitGaspard de la nuitGaspard de la nuit: Trois poèmes pour piano d'après Aloysius Bertrand is a piece for solo piano by Maurice Ravel, written in 1908. It has three movements, each based on a poem by Aloysius Bertrand...
by Maurice RavelMaurice RavelJoseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...
(2002) New Albion #NA096 - New Music: Piano Compositions by Henry CowellHenry CowellHenry Cowell was an American composer, music theorist, pianist, teacher, publisher, and impresario. His contribution to the world of music was summed up by Virgil Thomson, writing in the early 1950s:...
(2003) New Albion #NA103 - Long Night by Kyle GannKyle GannKyle Eugene Gann is an American professor of music, critic and composer born in Dallas, Texas. As a critic for The Village Voice and other publications he has been a supporter of progressive music including such Downtown movements as postminimalism and totalism.- As composer :As a composer his...
(2005) Cold Blue #CB0019