Sarah Cahill returns to Old First Concerts to perform rarely-heard works by Baroque composer Anna Bon, Leokadiya Kashperova (best known as Stravinsky's piano teacher), Azerbaijani composer Frangiz Ali-Zadeh, American composer and civil rights activist Zenobia Powell Perry, and Hungarian composer-pianist Agi Jambor, who survived a harrowing escape from Nazi-occupied Europe and dedicated her Piano Sonata to the victims of Auschwitz. Also on Sarah's program are selections from Madeleine Dring's Colour Suite and Hannah Kendall's On the Chequer’d Field Array’d, a musical depiction of a chess game.
Sarah Cahill, recently called “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times and “a brilliant and charismatic advocate for modern and contemporary composers” by Time Out New York, has commissioned and premiered over sixty compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Yoko Ono, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. Keyboard Magazine writes, “Through her inspired interpretation of works across the 20th and 21st centuries, Cahill has been instrumental in bringing to life the music of many of our greatest living composers.” She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF).