Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin & Adrienne Kim to Perform The Music Of Canadian Composer Ann Southam Presented by Piano Lunaire

On Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 8pm, Sarah Cahill will be presented in concert by PIano Lunaire alongside pianists Adrienne Kim and Adam Sherkin (Artistic Director of Piano Lunaire) at the Tenri Cultural Institute (43 W. 13th St.). This concert, titled Portrait of a Canadian Minimalist, is the sixth installment in the Composers in Play series presented by Piano Lunaire.

The three pianists will perform a program highlighting the work of Canadian composer Ann Southam. Cahill will give the New York premiere of Commotion Creek (2007) and perform Glass Houses No. 5 and No.7 (1981) and Rivers Series 1 No. 1 and Rivers Series 2 No. 7 (1979) . Sherkin will give the New York premieres of Fiddle Creek (2008), Pond Life III (2008), Fidget Creek (2008) and Pond Life IV (2008). Kim and Sherkin will also be performing original works by Sherkin, with Sherkin giving the U.S. premiere of his work, This Constant Song (Homage to Southam). Kim will also perform Franz Schubert's Gretchen am Spinnrade (arr. by Franz Liszt) (1814) and Southam's Remembering Schubert (1993).

An unlikely champion of the Minimalist aesthetic, Southam worked tirelessly throughout her career, experimenting with style and structure, always staying true to her own voice and musicality. Later in life, as she embraced minimalism - particularly at the keyboard - she navigated her own brand of lyricism, intimacy and efficiency of line not only as feminist, but as an individual artist born of unquestionably North American sensibilities. She advocated for women in the arts and cultivated her own – very unique – career, all the while cohabitating a compositional world heavily dominated by men. CBC Producer Eitan Cornfield once said: “Ann Southam blasts the stereotype of the Canadian composer. She is proudly, politically female, in a stuffy male universe.”

In 2023, now thirteen years after her death, she is revered more than ever. This performance celebrates the major piano cycles Southam wrote over a late twenty-year span, forming her final creative period: Glass Houses, Rivers and Pond Life. These works are the most popular of Ann Southam's cycles to be sold in print and be performed.

Of collaborating with Cahill for this program honoring Ann Southam, Sherkin says:

“We are honored to be collaborating with Sarah Cahill on this exciting presentation of Ann Southam's piano music. Cahill is among the most sensitive proponents of Southam's catalogue, particularly here in the US. Her dedication to Southam's art has yielded expert renditions, both on stage and in the recording studio. Additionally, Cahill's career has seen dynamic partnerships with celebrated American minimalist composers, offering a unique depth of understanding when performing Southam. This exceptional profile of West Coast meeting a Canadian sensibility, is ideal for contextualizing Southam in a dynamic new perspective for 2023. It is our hope that fresh audiences will come to discover and appreciate Ann Southam's work, both at the piano and beyond.”

Of Ann Southam's music and the works she'll be performing in this concert, Kim says:

“Ann Southam's approach to minimalism speaks to me on so many levels. She wanted to shine a light on the repetitive and meditative qualities of so-called ‘women's work', the daily work of mending and sewing, that was so important and beautiful but often unnoticed. There is something about the work done by hands, whether holding a needle or playing the piano, that allows contemplation and rumination and the deepest exploration. In this program, I'm weaving together a transcription of one of Franz Schubert's most famous songs - portraying the innermost thoughts of a woman sitting at a spinning wheel, with Ann Southam's “Remembering Schubert”, and pairing these with two gorgeous pieces by Adam Sherkin, which seem to me to be of a similar handicraft, though across centuries.”

Cahill says of this special performance dedicated to Ann Southam's work and performing alongside Kim and Sherkin:

“It's a great honor to be joining two esteemed colleagues, Adam Sherkin and Adrienne Kim, for this special celebration of Ann Southam's music. Adam has an especially close relationship to Southam's music, through his extensive research and deep understanding of her work, and as a fellow Canadian composer. For a few decades now, Southam has been one of my favorite composers to play, but Adam encouraged me to explore more of her work, for which I'm very grateful. Southam is often left out of the history books and lists of great minimalist composers, so this concert presented by Piano Lunaire is particularly meaningful, to introduce her to new audiences and generate more interest in her extraordinarily profound and transcendent music.”

About Sarah Cahill: Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times, has commissioned and premiered over seventy compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to Cahill include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Julia Wolfe, Roscoe Mitchell, Annea Lockwood, and Ingram Marshall. She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music, awarded by the American Composers Forum (ACF). Sarah Cahill's discography includes more than twenty albums on the New Albion, CRI, New World, Tzadik, Albany, Innova, Cold Blue, Other Minds, Irritable Hedgehog, and Pinna labels. Her three-album series, The Future is Female, was released on First Hand Records between March 2022 and April 2023. These albums encompass 30 compositions by women from around the globe, from the 17th century to the present day, and include many world premiere recordings.

Cahill's radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 6 to 8pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. She is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

For more information, visit www.sarahcahill.com.

About Adrienne Kim: Pianist Adrienne Kim has performed in Alice Tully Hall, Merkin Hall, Weill Recital Hall, Bargemusic, Symphony Hall, Phillips Gallery and Ravinia's Rising Stars series in Chicago. She has been soloist with the Central Philharmonic Orchestra of Beijing, and the Orquesta Sinfonica Nacional de Mexico among others. Adrienne was a member of Chamber Music Society Two, The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center's two-year residency program. She is the pianist of the Alcott Trio and a founding member of the New York Chamber Music Co-Op. She performs regularly as a member of the Bronx Arts Ensemble and participated in the National Endowment for the Arts/Chamber Music America Rural Residency. She has recorded for the Koch, Centaur, Capstone, Albany and Innova labels. Her newest recording of solo piano and chamber works by the composer Ilari Kaila, with the Aizuri Quartet and flutist Isabel Lepanto Gleicher, was released last year on Innova Recordings.

Adrienne is on the faculty of Mannes College and heads the Secondary Piano department there. She recently joined the faculty of Manhattan School of Music Pre-College and Interharmony Music School. She also teaches at Kinhaven's Young Artist Seminar and taught at the senior session for 12 summers. She is the founder and director of Wild Plums Recording Retreat, a boutique festival in Vermont devoted to the art of recording, and ScherziMusic Academy, which offers online workshops in piano and composition. She studied at Indiana University and Manhattan School of Music as a student of Menahem Pressler and Leon Fleisher.

About Adam Sherkin: Acclaimed for “dazzling displays of hand and ear virtuosity” (Opus One), “technical prowess and uncommon lyricism” (Musical Toronto), Adam Sherkin is a dynamic artist who commands a multi-dimensional approach to performance and composition. Admired for innovative programming and engaging virtuosity, Sherkin has performed at significant venues throughout Canada, the United States and Britain. His solo repertoire features music from the Baroque to present-day, with a specialization in keyboard works from North America (including his own). Recently, Sherkin's music has been premiered in Mexico, the United States, the Netherlands and Asia. In 2018, Adam Sherkin founded “Piano Lunaire,” a new-gen organization that serves as platform for contemporary performances, houses a record label and collaborates with the new music community at large. Sherkin's recordings are available on all major streaming services; he currently resides in New York City.

About Piano Lunaire: Innovating, Piano-Side, since 2018: Founded in October 2018 under a full Hunter's Moon, Piano Lunaire is a contemporary classical music organization based in New York and Toronto, pursuing the presentation of artistic excellence in the 21st Century. The company's portfolio is three-fold: we produce monthly full moon performances, house a record label, and collaborate with the musical community at large, in capacity of both fundraiser and pedagogical platform.

Concert details:

Who: Pianists Sarah Cahill, Adam Sherkin, and Adrienne Kim
Presented by Piano Lunaire
What: Music by Ann Southam, Adam Sherkin, and Franz Schubert
When: Saturday, December 9, 2023 at 8pm
Where: Tenri Cultural Institute, 43 W. 13th St., New York, NY 10011
Tickets and information: www.pianolunaire.org/composersinplay

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