Aug. 4: Pianist Sarah Cahill Presented by Gretna Music in The Future is Female – Plus the World Premiere of Bending Light by Tina Davidson & Music by Maria Corley
Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski available in high-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill
Pianist Sarah Cahill Presented by Gretna Music
Performing Music by Women Composers from Around the Globe
in The Future is Female
Featuring the World Premiere of Tina Davidson’s Bending Light
Plus a Performance of Lucid Dreaming by Maria Corley
Sunday, August 4, 2024 at 7:30pm
Mount Gretna Playhouse | 200 Pennsylvania Ave. | Mt. Gretna, PA
More Information
“a series distinctive for its finesse and conviction”
– Gramophone on Cahill’s The Future is Female
Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR Tiny Desk Concert
www.sarahcahill.com
Mt. Gretna, PA – On Sunday, August 4, 2024 at 7:30pm, Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, will perform music from her ongoing project The Future is Female in a concert presented by Gretna Music at the Mount Gretna Playhouse (200 Pennsylvania Ave.). The concert will be preceded by Conversation with Composers, a talk featuring Lancaster County composers Maria Corley and Tina Davidson from 6:45-7:05pm. Cahill will be performing Corley’s work Lucid Dreaming, as well as giving the world premiere of Bending Light, a new work for piano and two three-inch drywall screws composed by Davidson.
Corley says of her work: “Lucid Dreaming was the first piece I wrote for solo piano as an adult. I used to have lucid dreams as a child. In each case, I would fly, usually to escape danger, sometimes with difficulty, sometimes barely above the ground. The opening depicts falling asleep (my favorite part of the day), and then the chase is on, with harmonies that feel a bit off-kilter. The middle section is about soaring, for a brief moment. At the end, the situation has gotten intense enough to wake the dreamer, who sinks back into the pillow, relieved that the dream is over.”
Of her new piece Bending Light, Davidson says: “For some reason, I have been thinking about light often. What if light were a solid and you could actually pick it up and bend it, soft and warm in your hands? Or, maybe, you could stretch it thin, and spin it like gold thread, letting it fly off into the air.”
The Future is Female is Cahill’s exploration of music for solo piano by women composers from the Baroque to the present day, which now includes more than 70 pieces from around the globe, some commissioned by Cahill as part of the project.
In addition to the works by Davidson and Corley, Cahill will perform music for solo piano by women composers that span from 1687 to 2024, encompassing the Baroque, Classical, Romantic, and Modern periods. Her program includes selections from Keyboard Suite in D minor (1687) by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre; Sonata No. 9, op. 5 no. 3 (1811) by Hélène de Montgeroult; Two Etudes, Op. 26 (1839) by Louise Farrenc; Vítězslava Kaprálová’s April Preludes (1937); and Praeludium in C major (1878) by Ethel Smyth.
Sarah Cahill has been featured performing music from The Future is Female in an NPR Tiny Desk concert as well as in eight-hour marathon performances at the Barbican Centre in London and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, both celebrating International Women’s Day. She has also brought the project to venues across the U.S. including Carolina Performing Arts in Chapel Hill, NC; Carlsbad Music Festival in San Diego, CA; the University of Iowa; Bowling Green New Music Festival in Ohio; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; North Dakota Museum of Art; the EXTENSITY Concert Series’ Women Now Festival in New York; the Newport Classical Music Festival in Rhode Island, and more.
In addition, Cahill recorded 30 works from The Future is Female on a three-volume set of albums released in 2022 and 2023 on the First Hand Records label, which included many world premiere recordings and was widely acclaimed by publications including in the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, BBC Music Magazine, International Piano, The Wire, Gramophone Magazine, and more. BBC Music Magazine reported, “the American pianist [Sarah Cahill] takes us on a chronological journey that zips around the world, stitching together contrasting styles into an enjoyable musical patchwork,” while New Music Buff notes the “impressive command of baroque, classical, romantic, and modern idioms” that Cahill brings to these recordings.
Listen to The Future is Female, Vols. 1-3 (First Hand Records):
Vol. 1: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol1
Vol. 2: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol2
Vol. 3: https://lnkfi.re/CahillFutureisFemaleVol3
Sarah Cahill began working on The Future is Female in 2018. She says:
“For decades I had been working with many living American composers, including Pauline Oliveros, Tania León, Eve Beglarian, Mary D. Watkins, Julia Wolfe, Ursula Mamlok, Meredith Monk, Annea Lockwood, and many more, but I felt an urgent need to explore neglected composers from the past, and from around the globe. Like most pianists, I grew up with the classical canon, which has always excluded women composers as well as composers of color. It is still standard practice to perform recitals consisting entirely of music written by men. The Future is Female, then, aims to be a corrective towards rebalancing the repertoire. It does not attempt to be exhaustive . . . The possibilities are, in fact, limitless.”
More about Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, which the San Francisco Chronicle describes as being “As tenacious and committed an advocate as any composer could dream of…” 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). 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.
Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 8 to 10 pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music 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, will perform music from her ongoing project The Future is Female in a concert presented by Gretna Music. The Future is Female is Cahill’s exploration of music for solo piano by women composers from the Baroque to the present day, which includes more than 70 pieces from around the globe, some commissioned by or for Cahill as part of the project. Cahill will perform works from her project that include music by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc Vitêslava Kaprálová, and Ethel Smyth The concert will also feature the world premiere of Bending Light by Tina Davidson and a performance of Lucid Dreaming by Maria Corley.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill
Presented by Gretna Music
What: Music by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc, Vitêslava Kaprálová, and Ethel Smyth, Tina Davidson and Maria Corley.
When: Sunday, August 4, 2024 at 7:30pm.
Where: Mt. Gretna Playhouse, 200 Pennsylvania Ave, Mt Gretna, PA 17064
Tickets and information: www.gretnamusic.org