Jan. 21: Pianist Sarah Cahill in The Future is Female Presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts
Photo of Sarah Cahill by Kristen Wrzesniewski available in high-resolution at www.jensenartists.com/artists-profiles/sarah-cahill
Pianist Sarah Cahill in The Future is Female
Presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts
Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 4pm
Grace Church | 17400 Bubbling Wells Rd. | Desert Hot Springs, CA
Free and Open to the Public - Donations Welcome
More information: www.dhsclassicalconcerts.org
“Sarah Cahill plays a wide-ranging selection of music composed by women on the final volume of a series distinctive for its finesse and conviction.”
– Gramophone Magazine on The Future is Female
Sarah Cahill: www.sarahcahill.com
Watch Sarah Cahill’s NPR TIny Desk Concert
Desert Hot Springs, CA – On Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 4pm, Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, is presented in concert by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts. The performance will be held at Grace Church (17400 Bubbling Wells Rd.). The concert is free and open to the public but donations are welcome.
For the first time since the April 28, 2023 release of The Future is Female Vol. 3, At Play –– the last volume in the album trilogy counterpart to Cahill’s project The Future is Female –– the Bay Area pianist will perform a diverse program of works by several composers featured as part of The Future is Female. The Future is Female is a research and performance project, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe and include many new commissioned works and world premiere recordings. Cahill has also released a three-volume series of recordings of the same name on First Hand Records.
The concert will include excerpts from Keyboard Suite in D minor (1687) by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Two Etudes, Op. 26 (1839) by Louise Farrenc, Lieder Op. 8, Nos. 1 and 3 (1846) by Fanny Mendelssohn, Presentiment by Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru, Troubled Water (1967) by Margaret Bonds, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees (2019) by Theresa Wong, and Piano Poems (2020) Regina Harris Baiocchi. In July 2023, Cahill performed excerpts from Baiocchi’s Piano Poems and Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru’s Presentiment as part of a NPR Tiny Desk Concert featuring works from her project The Future is Female - watch here.
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, which now encompasses more than 70 compositions, in 2018. “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 felt an urgent need to explore neglected composers from the past, and from around the globe,” she explains. “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, in any way, and the three albums in this series represent only a small fraction of the music by women which is waiting to be performed and heard. Since recording these three albums in August 2021, I’ve performed extraordinary music by Louise Farrenc, Maria Szymanowska, Helen Hopekirk, Dora Pejačević and Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Reena Esmail, Arlene Sierra, Viola Kinney, Marion Bauer, and many other composers who should rightfully be included in this series. The possibilities are, in fact, limitless.”
Recent and upcoming performances of The Future is Female include concerts at The Barbican, 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.
Of collaborating with Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts and performing works from The Future is Female now that her album trilogy has been completed and released, Cahill says:
"It's such an honor to be part of Danny Holt's Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts series. We've been friends and colleagues for more than twenty years, and I'm looking forward to our animated conversations about new music. I'm excited to be sharing music by women from 1687 onwards, including pieces I commissioned from Theresa Wong and Regina Harris Baiocchi. This is the first time I've played works from my project 'The Future is Female' since the last of a trilogy of albums was released earlier this year on the First Hand label, so it's especially meaningful to be revisiting this program."
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).
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 8 to 10 pm 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.
About Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts: When concert pianist Danny Holt moved from Los Angeles to Desert Hot Springs, he noticed a hunger for more arts and culture in his newly adopted hometown. In 2014 he took it upon himself to do something about it, creating Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts to bring first-rate classical music to the city. The reaction from the community was overwhelming: there is an enthusiastic audience for live classical music in Desert Hot Springs!
In recent years the series has expanded its offerings, presenting concerts at numerous venues throughout the city and building on our partnership with the local schools. Now in our tenth season, our concerts feature established professional artists who are gifted at bringing classical music to life through their performances–inspiring and informing the audience about the music through their fun, insightful, and dynamic presentations. Admission to the concerts is free, thanks to underwriting from the City of Desert Hot Springs, local businesses and community organizations, and generous support from individual donors. Cash donations at the door at each concert are always appreciated, and are a crucial part of sustaining the concert series. (And now donations can be made online too!)
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianists Sarah Cahill, described by The New York Times as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde,” is presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts. Cahill will perform a program featuring music from her project, The Future is Female: Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Two Etudes, Op. 26 (1839) by Louise Farrenc, Lieder Op. 8, Nos. 1 and 3 (1846) by Fanny Mendelssohn, Presentiment by Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru, Troubled Water (1967) by Margaret Bonds, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees (2019) by Theresa Wong, and Piano Poems (2020) Regina Harris Baiocchi. The performance is free and open to the public but donations are welcome.
Short Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” (The New York Times), is presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts in The Future is Female. The free concert features works by Louise Farrenc, Fanny Mendelssohn, Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru, Margaret Bonds, Theresa Wong, and Regina Harris Baiocchi
Concert details:
Who: Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim
Presented by Desert Hot Springs Classical Concerts
What: Music by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Louise Farrenc, Fanny Mendelssohn, Emahoy Tsege Maryam Gebru, Margaret Bonds, Theresa Wong, and Regina Harris Baiocchi from Cahill’s ongoing project, The Future is Female
When: Sunday, January 21, 2024 at 4pm
Where: Grace Church, 17400 Bubbling Wells Rd., Desert Hot Springs, CA 92241
Tickets and information: https://www.dhsclassicalconcerts.org/