Music by women is now heard more often - but still not often enough - in contemporary music concerts. But it's still rare to hear female composers from the 17th to early 20th centuries, especially in piano recitals. There is a tremendous variety of Baroque, Classical, and Romantic works by women which needs to be part of the standard repertoire, by remarkable composers like Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, Helene de Montgeroult, Fanny Mendelssohn, Teresa Carreno, Germaine Tailleferre, and countless others. Sarah Cahill has been performing more than sixty compositions by women from the last four centuries and around the globe, and presents some of them in this Piano Talk as a celebration of the centennial of the 19th Amendment.
An icon of the Bay Area new music scene, Sarah Cahill has collaborated with, commissioned, and premiered works by John Adams, Eve Beglarian, Kyle Gann, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley and Evan Ziporyn, among others. A major recording artist with dozens of releases (including a recent box set of the work of Terry Riley), Cahill was the 2018 recipient of the Champion of New Music Award from the American Composers Forum for her promotion of contemporary composers. She has extensively performed the works of women composers, past and present, and is currently touring with her installation/performance, "The Future is Female," a communal feminist immersive listening experience that features more than 60 compositions by women from around the globe. Cahill is an alumna - and current faculty member - of SFCM.