Pianist Sarah Cahill to Perform With Music From Almost Yesterday at UWM

MILWAUKEE - Music From Almost Yesterday presents guest pianist Sarah Cahill on Thursday, March 13 at 7:30 p.m. at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Peck School of the Arts Recital Hall, 2400 E. Kenwood Blvd.

The program, "Composing Women: Ruth Crawford and Seven of Our Contemporaries," includes the complete Ruth Crawford piano preludes, as well as seven short works by contemporary woman composers commissioned by Cahill as a tribute to Crawford.

Admission is $8/general and $5/students and seniors. For tickets and information, phone (414) 229-4308. Box office hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and one hour before performances.

San Francisco-based pianist, writer and producer Sarah Cahill specializes in new American music and music from the American experimental tradition. She is known as an advocate of contemporary composers.

Cahill also is host of a weekly music program called "Then & Now" on KALW in San Francisco and has written about music for a wide variety of publications. She has produced many musical events, including a Henry Cowell centennial festival, as part of the Cal Performances series in 1997, and the annual Garden of Memory summer solstice concert at the Chapel of the Chimes in Oakland. Cahill has performed her musical tribute to Crawford in many concert series. According to The New York Times, Cahill performs these works with "illuminating clarity." Cahill also has recorded the Preludes.

Although Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901-1953) has never known the popularity of her folk-singer stepson Pete, she is a seminal figure in American music and a pioneer of modern expression on this continent. Her music, influenced by the Transcendentalists, Walt Whitman and the Russian composer Scriabin, has been described as "mystical." Each of the companion pieces on the program focuses on a particular aspect of Ruth Crawford's legacy. For example, Eve Beglarian set a prophetic poem written by Crawford at the age of 13, and Pauline Oliveros composed a playful dance reminiscent of Crawford's counterpoint. Together, they form a musical portrait of Ruth Crawford Seeger.

Music From Almost Yesterday is a series in the UWM Peck School of the Arts Department of Music that presents contemporary music. The essence of the series derives from Director Yehuda Yannay's belief that, "the minute a piece has been written, it is no longer new, so all music, however avant-garde, is from almost yesterday."

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