Sarah Cahill & Viet Cuong: Stargazer for Piano and Orchestra
Photo of Sarah Cahill by Christine Alicino, Photo of Viet Cuong by Aaron Jay Young
LINKS & ASSETS
Sarah Cahill & Viet Cuong: Stargazer Brochure
BOOKING INQUIRIES
Christina Jensen, christina@jensenartists.com
Gina Meola, gina@jensenartists.com
646.536.7864
“fiercely gifted”
“wildly inventive”
Pianist Sarah Cahill performs composer Viet Cuong’s new piano concerto, Stargazer, which received its world premiere in May 2023 with the California Symphony, as part of Cuong’s role as the Symphony’s Young American Composer-in-Residence.
Cahill says of Cuong’s new work, “Stargazer is unabashedly gorgeous. It’s very challenging to play, because the piano part is all 32nd notes, very fast, like a toccata—but often a very delicate texture. The inspiration of Baroque music comes through in a kind of chaconne-like recurring bass line and harmonic form. But Stargazer is also unmistakably Viet Cuong: there’s a beautiful sort of echo effect that he’s been using in his work recently. It’s an extraordinary concerto and I’m excited to bring it to life.”
Stargazer showcases Viet Cuong’s deft blending of two musical techniques: an underlying cyclic bass line provides the basic structure, while everything above unfolds and develops, incorporating a layering similar to that created by tape delay.
About the name Stargazer: “I like the idea that the pianist is the Stargazer, with the piano as your telescope,” remarked Cuong during a conversation with pianist Sarah Cahill. “You’re looking out and hearing the orchestra twinkle around you and they’re taking the sounds from you. Each one of the notes echoes itself, so it snowballs and creates this very lustrous texture.”
Instrumentation: 2-2-2-2; 4-4-3-1; tmp+4; str
Duration: 17 minutes
-
Pianist 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. Cahill’s latest album, The Future is Female, Vol. 3, At Play, was released in April 2023 on First Hand Records. The Future is Female is a three-volume series, which celebrates and highlights women composers from the 17th century to the present day.
Composer Viet Cuong
Called “alluring” and “wildly inventive” by The New York Times, the “irresistible” (San Francisco Chronicle) music of Vietnamese-American composer Viet Cuong (b. 1990) has been commissioned and performed on six continents by musicians and ensembles including the New York Philharmonic, Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Sō Percussion, Atlanta Symphony, Sandbox Percussion, and Orchestra of St. Luke’s, among many others, and has been played at venues such as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, National Gallery of Art, and more. In his music, Cuong enjoys exploring the unexpected and whimsical, and he is often drawn to projects where he can make peculiar combinations and sounds feel enchanting or oddly satisfying. He was recently featured in The Washington Post’s “21 for ’21: Composers and performers who sound like tomorrow.”