Sarah Cahill (born 1960) is an American pianist based in the

Bay Area The San Francisco Bay Area, often referred to as simply the Bay Area, is a populous region surrounding the San Francisco, San Pablo, and Suisun Bay estuaries in Northern California. The Bay Area is defined by the Association of Bay Area Gov ...

. She has also worked as a writer on music and as a radio show host.

Early life and education

Born in Washington, D.C., Sarah Cahill moved to Berkeley, California when her father James Cahill became Professor of Chinese Art History at the University of California, Berkeley.Snap, Martin
Tribute to a teacher: Show honors art historian
''Oakland Tribune''. 2007-04-27. Accessed: 2008-12-01.
WebCite
She was drawn to music as her father owned an extensive collection of records, including rare recordings of composers and pianists such as

Stravinsky Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential 20th-century clas ...

, Prokofiev, Bartók, Artur Schnabel, Walter Gieseking and

Clara Haskil Clara Haskil (7 January 1895 – 7 December 1960) was a Romanian classical pianist, renowned as an interpreter of the classical and early romantic repertoire. She was particularly noted for her performances and recordings of Mozart. She was also ...

. Cahill began her formal piano studies at the age of six, and at seven she began studying with Sharon Mann. By twelve, she had started performing concertos with several local orchestras. At sixteen, she played Bach’s D major Toccata at the Sommermusikwochen chamber music festival in Trogen, Switzerland. Cahill skipped her final year of high school to join the

San Francisco Conservatory The San Francisco Conservatory of Music (SFCM) is a private music conservatory in San Francisco, California. As of 2021, it had 480 students. History The San Francisco Conservatory of Music was founded in 1917 by Ada Clement and Lillian Hodg ...

, where John Adams composed ''

China Gates ''China Gates'' is a short piano piece composed by the minimalist American composer John Adams in 1977. (Adams soon gave this work a companion, his ''Phrygian Gates'', finished the next year. The latter is the longer of the two and uses similar t ...

'' for her. She finished her academic studies at the University of Michigan, where she continued her musical training with

Theodore Lettvin Theodore Lettvin (October 29, 1926 – August 24, 2003) was an American concert pianist and conductor. He was one of the four children of Solomon and Fannie Lettvin, two Jewish-Ukrainian immigrants who settled in Chicago. Neurophysiologist and ...

Music career

Sarah Cahill has commissioned, premiered and recorded numerous works for solo piano. Compositions dedicated to her include John Adams’ ''

'',

Frederic Rzewski Frederic Anthony Rzewski ( ; April 13, 1938 – June 26, 2021) was an American composer and pianist, considered to be one of the most important American composer-pianists of his time. His major compositions, which often incorporate social an ...

’s ''Snippets 2'',

Pauline Oliveros Pauline Oliveros (May 30, 1932 – November 24, 2016) was an American composer, accordionist and a central figure in the development of post-war experimental and electronic music. She was a founding member of the San Francisco Tape Music Center ...

’ ''Quintuplets Play Pen'', and

Kyle Gann Kyle Eugene Gann (born November 21, 1955, in Dallas, Texas) is an American professor of music, critic, analyst, and composer who has worked primarily in the New York City area. As a music critic for ''The Village Voice'' (from 1986 to 2005) and ...

's ''Private Dances and On Reading Emerson''. She has also premiered works by Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, Evan Ziporyn,

Julia Wolfe Julia Wolfe (born December 18, 1958) is an American composer and professor of music at New York University. According to ''The Wall Street Journal'', Wolfe's music has "long inhabited a terrain of its own, a place where classical forms are rech ...

, Ingram Marshall,

Ursula Mamlok Ursula Mamlok (February 1, 1923 – May 4, 2016) was a German-born American composer and teacher. Education and influences Mamlok was born as Ursula Meyer in Berlin, Germany, into a Jewish family, and studied piano and composition with Professor G ...

, George Lewis,

Leo Ornstein Leo Ornstein (born ''Лев Орнштейн'', ''Lev Ornshteyn''; – February 24, 2002) was an American experimental composer and pianist of the early twentieth century. His performances of works by avant-garde composers and his own innovative ...

and many others. In late 2008 and 2009 Cahill developed and performed a new project known under two titles, A Sweeter Music, and Notes on the War: The Piano Protests, where she asked composers for piano music on the subject of peace. The second title was printed in '' The New York Times'', but was not Cahill's original title.Smith, Steve
Sounds of Peace, Sometimes Drowned Out by the Din of War
''The New York Times''. 2009-03-16. Page C7, New York edition. Accessed: 2010-04-20. Commissioned composers include Preben Antonsen, Michael Byron,

Paul Dresher Paul Joseph Dresher (born January 8, 1951 in Los Angeles) is an American composer. Dresher received his B.A. in music from the University of California, Berkeley and his M.A. in composition from the University of California, San Diego, where he st ...

, Ingram Marshall, Jerome Kitzke,

Mamoru Fujieda is a Japanese composer associated with the postminimalist movement of contemporary classical music. Biography He received a Ph.D. in music from the University of California, San Diego in 1988. His composition instructors have included Joji Yuasa ...

, Peter Garland, Phil Kline, Jerome Kitzke, Meredith Monk,

, Yoko Ono,

Larry Polansky Larry Polansky (born 1954) is a composer, guitarist, mandolinist, and professor emeritus at Dartmouth College and the University of California, Santa Cruz. He is a founding member and co-director of Frog Peak Music (a composers' collective) He c ...

, Bernice Johnson Reagon,

The Residents The Residents are an American art collective and art rock band best known for their avant-garde music and multimedia works. Since their first official release, ''Meet the Residents'' (1974), they have released over 60 albums, numerous music vi ...

, Terry Riley,

and

Carl Stone Carl Stone (born Carl Joseph Stone, February 10, 1953) is an American composer, primarily working in the field of live electronic music. His works have been performed in the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, and the ...

. In later performances of A Sweeter Music, Cahill's spouse John Sanborn contributed video content to accompany the music, displayed across three screens and synchronized music. Other projects developed by Cahill include Playdate, Bay Area Pianists and Garden of Memory. Playdate is a group of commissioned pieces about childhood combined with classical works; the commission of an evening of new scores for four hands by Terry Riley, performed with pianist Joseph Kubera; and a concert of recent Italian music, featuring premieres by Luciano Chessa, Andrea Morricone, and others. She founded the Bay Area Pianists in 1993. In 1996, in association with New Music Bay Area'','' Cahill created the annual Garden of Memory walk-through concert at the Julia Morgan-designed Chapel of the Chimes wherein audience members move through the environment with new music ensembles performing simultaneously throughout the spaces. In 2003 she co-curated the Berkeley Edge Fest at Cal Performances. Cahill investigated the impact early 20th century American modernists had on the composers of her time and explored these influences in concert programs at the Miller Theater at Columbia University, Lincoln Center, Merkin Hall, Galapagos Art Space in New York City, Spoleto Festival USA, the Phillips Collection, the Freer Gallery (part of the Smithsonian Piano 300 gala), and at the Other Minds Festival in San Francisco. She has also performed at the Nuovi Spazi Musicali Festival at the American Academy in Rome, the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and at the Pacific Crossings Festival in Tokyo, Japan. In December 2021, Cahill performed a seven-hour marathon performance of over seventy pieces by female composers at

BAMPFA The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA, formerly abbreviated as BAM/PFA) are a combined art museum, repertory movie theater, and archive associated with the University of California, Berkeley. Lawrence Rinder was Director from ...

, including works she commissioned by Regina Harris Baiocchi,

Mary Watkins Mary D. Watkins (born 1939, Denver, Colorado) is an American composer and pianist in jazz and classical music. Watkins graduated from Howard University in 1972 and began performing in jazz ensembles in Washington, D.C. shortly after. Watkins rele ...

, and

Theresa Wong Theresa Wong (born March 31, 1976) is an American cellist, vocalist, composer and improviser in the field of experimental music. In 2013 she lived in the San Francisco Bay Area. Early life and education She was born in Schenectady, New York, Uni ...

Other work

As a radio personality, Cahill has hosted weekly radio shows on the classical and contemporary music scenes on both

KPFA KPFA (94.1 FM) is an American listener-funded talk radio and music radio station located in Berkeley, California, broadcasting to the San Francisco Bay Area. KPFA airs public news, public affairs, talk, and music programming. The station sign ...

Berkeley Berkeley most often refers to: *Berkeley, California, a city in the United States **University of California, Berkeley, a public university in Berkeley, California * George Berkeley (1685–1753), Anglo-Irish philosopher Berkeley may also refer ...

, where her program was cited as "One of the 100 Best Things in the Bay Area" by Citysearch, and on KALW in San Francisco. Cahill has written music reviews for Gramophone Explorations, Historical Performance, ClassicsToday.com, '' The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' and other international publications, in addition to liner notes for recordings by John Adams, Terry Riley, and others. In 1985 she became the music critic for the '' East Bay Express'' and has been published in the '' San Francisco Chronicle'', '' Village Voice'' Literary Supplement, and others.

Personal life

Cahill is married to the media artist John Sanborn.

Discography

* '' Miroirs'' and '' Gaspard de la Nuit'' by

Maurice Ravel Joseph Maurice Ravel (7 March 1875 – 28 December 1937) was a French composer, pianist and conductor. He is often associated with Impressionism along with his elder contemporary Claude Debussy, although both composers rejected the term. In ...

(New Albion, 1997) * ''Ruth Crawford: 9 Preludes; Johanna Beyer: Dissonant Counterpoint, Gebrauchs-Musik'' (New Albion, 2001) * ''New Music: Piano Compositions'' by

Henry Cowell Henry Dixon Cowell (; March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American composer, writer, pianist, publisher and teacher. Marchioni, Tonimarie (2012)"Henry Cowell: A Life Stranger Than Fiction" ''The Juilliard Journal''. Retrieved 19 June 202 ...

(New Albion, 2003) * ''Long Night'' by

(Cold Blue, 2005) * ''Ingram Marshall: Savage Altars'' (New Albion, 2006) * ''Kyle Gann: Private Dances'' (New Albion, 2008) * ''Marc Blitzstein: First Life – Rare Early Works'' (Other Minds, 2009) * ''A Sweeter Music'' by Sarah Cahill (Other Minds, 2013) * ''

: Patterns of Plants'' (Pinna, 2014) * ''Eighty Trips Around the Sun: Music by and for Terry Riley'' (2017)

References

External links

Sarah Cahill's website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cahill, Sarah Living people 1960 births American classical pianists American women classical pianists American women non-fiction writers 21st-century American women writers University of Michigan alumni 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American women pianists 21st-century classical pianists 21st-century American women pianists 21st-century American pianists 21st-century American non-fiction writers