NPR Music Tiny Desk Concerts

Sarah Cahill (2023x77)

: 18, 2023

Pianist Sarah Cahill commands a near godlike status among fans of contemporary classical music. She's commissioned dozens of new works from today's top composers including John Adams, Julia Wolfe and Terry Riley. But when she sat down at the piano behind Bob Boilen's desk, she was focused not so much on new music but instead the plight of women composers. While compositions by women are being heard slightly more often in concert halls over the past three years, historically the numbers have been pitiful. (In the 2018-19 season, both the Philadelphia and the Chicago Symphony Orchestras presented music by 55 different composers — none were women.) Cahill is doing her part to remedy the situation. For this performance, she offers a sampler of The Future is Female, her multi-volume project that collects piano music by a staggeringly wide swath of women composers over a four-century span. A spirited prelude by the short-lived Czech composer Vítězslava Kaprálová opens the set. She managed