Sarah Cahill in Concert at the New Music Gathering

Sarah Cahill Performs a Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80
at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music
as part of the 2015 New Music Gathering

Keyboard Studies (from the mid-60s) – Terry Riley
Poppy Infinite (premiere) – Gyan Riley
Shade Studies (premiere) – Samuel Carl Adams
excerpt from YEAR (premiere) – Dylan Mattingly
A Trilling Piece for Terry (premiere) – Pauline Oliveros
The Philosopher’s Hand (premiere of transcription by Toon Vandevorst) – Terry Riley
Circle Songs (premiere) – Danny Clay

2015 is the eightieth birthday year of composer-pianist Terry Riley, who has had a profound influence on generations of composers and musicians. A Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80 pays tribute to Riley’s enduring impact with the premieres of new solo piano pieces written in honor of his eightieth birthday by Samuel Carl Adams, Pauline Oliveros, Gyan Riley, Christine Southworth, Dylan Mattingly, and Danny Clay, combined with some of Riley’s own dazzling piano compositions. Sarah Cahill has worked closely with Terry Riley since 1997, when she commissioned his four-hand piece Cinco de Mayo for an all-piano festival at Cal Performances celebrating Henry Cowell’s hundredth birthday. She commissioned four more four-hand pieces from Riley, toured with him in Edinburgh and Glasgow, performed in his 70th birthday concert at Royce Hall at UCLA, and commissioned a solo piece, Be Kind to One Another, which NPR listed on its 100 Best Songs of 2013, and MSNBC included on its Top Ten Political Songs of 2013.