Sarah Cahill has commissioned, premiered and recorded numerous works for solo piano. Compositions dedicated to her include
John Adams’
China Gates,
Frederic Rzewski’s
Snippets 2,
Pauline Oliveros’
Quintuplets Play Pen, and
Kyle Gann's
Private Dances and On Reading Emerson. She has also premiered works by
Lou Harrison,
Terry Riley,
Evan Ziporyn,
Julia Wolfe,
Ingram Marshall,
Ursula Mamlok,
George Lewis,
Leo Ornstein and many others. In late 2008 and 2009 Cahill developed and performed a new project known under two titles, A Sweeter Music, and Notes on the War: The Piano Protests, where she asked composers for piano music on the subject of peace. The second title was printed in
The New York Times, but was not Cahill's original title. Commissioned composers include Preben Antonsen, Michael Byron,
Paul Dresher,
Ingram Marshall,
Jerome Kitzke,
Mamoru Fujieda,
Kyle Gann,
Peter Garland,
Phil Kline,
Jerome Kitzke,
Meredith Monk,
Pauline Oliveros,
Yoko Ono,
Larry Polansky,
Bernice Johnson Reagon,
The Residents,
Terry Riley,
Frederic Rzewski and
Carl Stone. In later performances of A Sweeter Music, Cahill's spouse
John Sanborn contributed video content to accompany the music, displayed across three screens and synchronized music. Other projects developed by Cahill include Playdate, Bay Area Pianists and Garden of Memory. Playdate is a group of commissioned pieces about childhood combined with classical works; the commission of an evening of new scores for four hands by
Terry Riley, performed with pianist Joseph Kubera; and a concert of recent
Italian music, featuring premieres by
Luciano Chessa, Andrea Morricone, and others. She founded the Bay Area Pianists in 1993. In 1996, in association with New Music Bay Area
, Cahill created the annual Garden of Memory walk-through concert at the
Julia Morgan-designed
Chapel of the Chimes wherein audience members move through the environment with new music ensembles performing simultaneously throughout the spaces. In 2003 she co-curated the Berkeley Edge Fest at
Cal Performances. Cahill investigated the impact early 20th century American modernists had on the composers of her time and explored these influences in concert programs at the Miller Theater at
Columbia University,
Lincoln Center,
Merkin Hall, Galapagos Art Space in New York City,
Spoleto Festival USA, the
Phillips Collection, the
Freer Gallery (part of the Smithsonian Piano 300 gala), and at the
Other Minds Festival in San Francisco. She has also performed at the Nuovi Spazi Musicali Festival at the
American Academy in Rome, the
Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, and at the Pacific Crossings Festival in
Tokyo, Japan. In December 2021, Cahill performed a seven-hour marathon performance
The Future is Female comprising over seventy pieces by female composers at
BAMPFA, including works she commissioned by
Regina Harris Baiocchi,
Mary Watkins, and
Theresa Wong. == Other work ==