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 to write some 50 works before her death in 1940 at age 25. What a contrast to the fascinating, quirky music of, the Ethiopian nun who lived to age 99. Poised for a career as a concert pianist, she turned to religious life and later wrote music in a singular style that includes off-kilter waltzes, odd syncopations, Ethiopian Orthodox chant and whiffs of blues.
Cahill looks back to the 17th century for dance music by Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre, a favorite of Louis XIV, and caps off the set with a piece she commissioned from the Chicago-based composer Regina Harris Baiocchi, a bittersweet poem for piano titled"a candle burns time." In an age when the average person would still be hard-pressed to identify a single woman classical composer, Sarah Cahill has plenty of important names to choose from.Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre: Suite No. 1, Sarabande & Gigue