May 18: Pianists Sarah Cahill & Regina Myers Presented by New Performance Traditions in Duo Concert Program featuring Music for Four Hands and Two Pianos
Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers
Presented by New Performance Traditions
Performing Music by Hanna Kulenty,
Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington (transcribed by Jed Distler),
Mamoru Fujieda, Eleanor Alberga, Riley Nicholson, and Colin McPhee
Dresher Ensemble Studio | 2201 Poplar Street | Oakland, CA
Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 7pm
“Pianist Sarah Cahill commands a near-godlike status among fans of contemporary classical music” – NPR Music
www.sarahcahill.com | www.reginamusic.com
Oakland, CA – On Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 7pm, pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers will be presented together in concert at the Dresher Ensemble Studio (2201 Poplar Street). Cahill and Myers will perform a duo program featuring works for four hands and two pianos: Van by Hanna Kulenty, Tonk? by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington (transcribed by Jed Distler), Sprites in a Large Camphor Tree by Mamoru Fujieda, 3-Day Mix by Eleanor Alberga, Up by Riley Nicholson, and Balinese Ceremonial Music by Colin McPhee. Nicholson will be present at the performance to speak about his work.
Cahill, known not only for her solo artistry but also her collaborative spirit, has a long and well-established relationship with fellow Bay Area musician Regina Myers. The two pianists have collaborated on many occasions, most recently for a duo performance at the 2023 Flower Piano festival, which The Rehearsal Studio wrote “deserved attentive listening.” It was at this performance that the two friends and colleagues gave the U.S. premiere of Mamoru Fujieda’s Sprites in a Large Camphor Tree. They also collaborated in 2022 on a performance which included the world premiere of Riley Nicholson’s Up –– a 35 minute work commissioned by Cahill and Myers.
Cahill has long been an enthusiastic supporter of Mamoru Fujieda’s work, playing a central role in the post-minimalist composer’s Pattern of Plants receiving a solo piano recording for the first time outside of Japan, when Cahill recorded the music on Pinna Records in 2014. Cahill’s performance on the recording was widely praised, with I Care If You Listen saying "Sarah Cahill expertly interprets and gives a clear voice to Fujieda's beautiful work," and The New York Times describing the music as “Delicate miniatures that unfold quietly and calmly.”
Jamaican-born, British composer Eleanor Alberga wrote 3-Day Mix in 1991. Alberga explains of her work 3-Day Mix: “As implied by the title, 3-Day Mix was written in 3 days when, with very short notice, an opportunity to compose a piano duet for a concert came about in 1991. This work…contains jazzy elements, but the melodic lines over ostinato figures appear in all my other ‘light’ works. It lasts about 9 minutes and is meant to be no more than a fun piece.”
Riley Nicholson says of his four-movement epic work: “Up’s one unifying theme is simply that: ‘up.’ The piece moves ‘up’ in so many directions: literally, opening with an upward motif that gets pinged between pianos in a groovy, dizzying counterpoint; gradually with increasing frequency moving up the circle of fifths; with upbeat syncopations and tempi; constantly one-upping itself with a burgeoning energy that trips over itself with virtuosic fits; and many other upward motions and themes. Up is a manic trip that both explores joyous energy and that darker underbelly of positivity when energy and motion become simply too much to be contained.”
Writer Jed Distler, who transcribed the version of Tonk to be performed in this program says of the piece: “Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn enjoyed playing impromptu piano duets in informal situations, which directly resulted in Tonk. Credited to both men but actually written by Strayhorn, they recorded it in 1945 as a piano duet and again in 1950, this time at two pianos. My two-piano transcription of Tonk was commissioned by Nurit Tilles and Edmund Niemann for Double Edge, and combines both recorded versions."
Polish composer Hanna Kulenty composed "VAN..." in 2014 at the request of the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Warsaw on the occasion of the State Visit of King Willem-Alexander and Queen Máxima of the Netherlands. It premiered during the Warsaw Autumn Festival. "VAN..." playfully explores minimalist patterns during which the pianists' hands collide as they continue each other's patterns.
Colin McPhee (1900-1964) was both a composer and an academic. His musical style has come to be known for an acute sensitivity to specific timbres and an appreciation for complex rhythmic textures. A three movement work, each of the sections of Balinese Ceremonial Music were arranged between 1934 and 1938. The two pianos heard together in the music manifest a type of ringing –– much like the metallophones of the gamelan –– effortlessly imparting a sonic quality of the gamelan to the instrumental medium of the piano.
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 10pm 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 Regina Myers: Regina performs as a solo artist and with ensembles around the Bay Area. She received a Bachelor's degree in Piano Performance from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and a Master's in Piano Performance and Literature from Mills College, where she focused on new and experimental music under the guidance of pianist Marc Shapiro, ensemble leader and composer Steed Cowart and percussion master William Winant. In 2004 she founded the concert series, and now ensemble, New Keys: New Keys' mission is to surface and promote the newest and most innovative music for the piano. We challenge composers to explore the vast untapped potential of the piano and strive to craft the experience of a piano recital as both captivating and approachable for our audience. Before going on hiatus to rapidly and accidentally expand her family, Regina proudly taught piano to beloved students for 17 years.
She has participated in the Hot Air, Switchboard, Garden of Memory Summer Solstice and SF Friends of Chamber Music SF Music Day music festivals and has had the honor of playing many concerts with the William Winant Percussion Group as well as the San Francisco Contemporary Music Players. She can be heard on Luciano Chessa's album Petrolio, Danny Clay/Joseph Colombo LP (with New Keys) and on Eighty Trips Around the Sun: Music by and for Terry Riley on which she plays four-hand music by Terry Riley with her duo partner Sarah Cahill. Regina prides herself on expanding the reach of new music for piano by commissioning new works and organizing concerts for their premieres and recording. She relishes working with young and emerging composers as well as keeping seminal new music masterpieces alive.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described by NPR Music as “command[ing] a near-godlike status among fans of contemporary classical music,” and pianist Regina Myers, are presented together in concert at the Dresher Ensemble Studio with pianist Regina Myers. Cahill and Myers will perform a concert program of various works for four hands and two pianos, including Van by Hanna Kulenty, Tonk by Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington (transcribed by Jed Distler), Sprites in a Large Camphor Tree by Mamoru Fujieda, 3-Day Mix by Eleanor Alberga, Up by Riley Nicholson, and Balinese Ceremonial Music by Colin McPhee. Riley Nicholson will be present at the performance to speak about his work.
Short description: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers are presented together in concert at The Dresher Ensemble Studio. The duo performance will include music by Hanna Kulenty, Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington (transcribed by Jed Distler), Mamoru Fujieda, Eleanor Alberga, Riley Nicholson, and Colin McPhee. Nicholson will be at the performance to speak about his work.
Concert details:
Who: Pianists Sarah Cahill and Regina Myers
Presented by New Performance Traditions
What: Music by Hanna Kulenty, Billy Strayhorn and Duke Ellington (transcribed by Jed Distler), Mamoru Fujieda, Eleanor Alberga, Riley Nicholson, and Colin McPhee.
When: Saturday, May 18, 2024 at 7pm
Where: Dresher Ensemble Studio, 2201 Poplar Street, Oakland, CA 94607
Tickets and information: www.dresherensemble.org/performances