April 13: Pianist Sarah Cahill in The Future is Female Presented by the Boulanger Initiative and Strathmore – Performing as Part of WoCo Fest 2024: Evolve
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 the Boulanger Initiative and Strathmore
Performing as Part of WoCo Fest 2024: Evolve
Saturday April 13, 2024 at 6pm
Strathmore Mansion | 10701 Rockville Pike | Rockville, MD
More information
“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
Rockville, MD – On Saturday, April 13, 2024 at 6pm, Sarah Cahill, described as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, is co-presented in concert by the Boulanger Initiative and Strathmore as part of WoCo Fest 2024: Evolve –– an annual multi-day Women Composers (WoCo) Festival, featuring works by women and gender-marginalized composers performed by local and nationally acclaimed performers. Cahill’s concert will be held at Strathmore Mansion (10701 Rockville Pike).
Nearly a year since the release of The Future is Female Vol. 3, At Play –– the final volume in the album trilogy counterpart to Cahill’s project The Future is Female –– the esteemed Bay Area pianist will perform a diverse program of works by an array of women composers who are featured as part of The Future is Female. The Future is Female is Cahill’s research and performance project, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day. Cahill’s three recordings of the same title encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe and include several newly commissioned works and world premiere recordings. Each of the albums was released on UK label First Hand Records.
The music Cahill has selected to perform during WoCo Fest 2024 spans almost 250 years and includes Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre’s Keyboard Suite in D minor (movements I, III, V, and VI) (1687); Hélène de Montgeroult’s Sonata No. 9, Op. 5 No. 3 (1811); Louise Farrenc’s Two Etudes, Op. 26 (1839); Leokadiya Kashperova’s Au sein de la nature (1910), movement III; Adelaide Pereira da Silva’s Valsa Choro No. 2 (1965); Troubled Water by Margaret Bonds (1967); and She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees by Theresa Wong (2019).
Cahill was recently featured in an NPR Tiny Desk concert performing music from 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 the mission and vision of the Boulanger Initiative and taking part in WoCo Fest by performing music from The Future is Female, Cahill says:
“It’s such a great honor to be part of WoCo Fest 2024. The Boulanger Initiative is engaged in such groundbreaking and important work, including their very valuable database of music by women and gender-marginalized composers – a resource that is being used widely in conservatories and music studios, for future generations. As these amazing composers are acknowledged, recognized, and performed, we can start achieving some equity and inclusion in concert programs, and the Boulanger Initiative has a vital role in that process.”
More 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 the Boulanger Initiative: Boulanger Initiative advocates for women and all gender marginalized composers. We foster inclusivity and representation to expand and enrich the collective understanding of what music is, has been, and can be. We promote music composed by women through performance, education, research, consulting, and commissions.
About Strathmore: Strathmore is a multidimensional creative anchor in the community, where everyone can connect with the arts and artists can explore their full potential. It is a 501(c) nonprofit serving the entire Washington, DC, region and the state of Maryland, with hundreds of performances, visual arts exhibitions, and education programs for diverse audiences on its Montgomery County campus and in the community each year.
For Calendar Editors:
Description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, described by The New York Times as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde,” is co-presented in concert by the Boulanger Initiative and Strathmore, as part of WoCo Fest –– an annual, multi-day, Women Composers (WoCo) Festival, which features works by women and gender-marginalized composers performed by local and nationally-acclaimed performers. Cahill will perform a program featuring music from her project, The Future is Female, including works by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc, Leokadiya Kashperova, Adelaide Pereira da Silva, Margaret Bonds, and Theresa Wong.
Short description: Pianist Sarah Cahill, “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” (The New York Times), is co-presented by the Boulanger Initiative and Strathmore in The Future is Female, as part of WoCo Fest. Cahill’s performance will feature works by Élisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre, Hélène de Montgeroult, Louise Farrenc, Leokadiya Kashperova, Adelaide Pereira da Silva, Margaret Bonds, and Theresa Wong.
Concert details:
Who: Pianist Sarah Cahill
Presented by the Boulanger Initiative and Strathmore
What: Music by several women composers, historical and living, from Cahill’s ongoing project, The Future is Female, as part of WoCo Fest 2024: Evolve
When: Saturday April 13, 2024 at 6pm
Where: Strathmore Mansion, 10701 Rockville Pike, Rockville, MD 20852
Tickets and information: www.boulangerinitiative.org/woco-fest-2024-evolve/saturday-mansion