The Future is Female

The Future is Female is a ritual installation and communal feminist immersive listening experience featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, ranging from the 18th century to the present day, including new commissioned works. This flexible program is available as an evening-length recital performance or as a marathon performance and is ideal for concert halls, museums, and gallery spaces. The marathon performance duration is between four to seven hours, allowing audience members to sit and listen for any length of time, with the ability to come and go, as well as the ability to walk around the space. Featured composers include Élisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre, Maria de Alvear, Galina Ustvolskaya, Franghiz Ali-Zadeh, Florence Price, Hannah Kendall, Anna Thorvaldsdottir, Kui Dong, Meredith Monk, Vítězslava Kaprálová, Deirdre Gribbin, Fannie Charles Dillon, and many others.

“The Future is Female was truly a treat: a trip through time and place through a wonderful variety of classical styles.” – Chatham Lifestyle

“There’s something invitingly contemporary about it, a vital complement to preservation for the vitality of classical piano music” – Indy Week

View the full repertoire list below.

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
Music for Piano (1989/1997)
For this piece, Azerbaijani composer and pianist Ali-Zadeh lays a beaded necklace on the strings of the piano to evoke a traditional instrument, the tar.

Maria de Alvear
Intenso (1994)
De Alvear is a Spanish-German composer whose works are often long form and allow great freedom to the performer. This is an excerpt of her hour-long Intenso.

Elinor Armer
Thaw (1975)

Grazyna Bacewicz
Sonata No. 2 (1953)

Elizabeth Baker
Four Planes (2015)

Amy Beach
Dreaming (1892)

Eve Beglarian
Fireside (2001) **
The melody of this piece is based on a 16th-century chant, and also inspired by Psalm 77, verse 20: “Your way was through the sea,/your path, through the mighty waters;/yet your footprints were unseen.”

Teresa Carreño
Un reve en mer (1868)
Carreño was a Venezuelan composer-pianist who played for Abraham Lincoln in the White House and was coached by Franz Liszt. She wrote this piece at the age of fifteen.

Cecile Chaminade
Theme and Variations (1895)
Chaminade’s piano and chamber music was popular during her lifetime, but her more “serious” works for orchestra and voices has been neglected. This is a short set of variations

Chen Yi
Guessing (1989)
Chen Yi grew up in China during the Cultural Revolution and studied regional folk music in the countryside. She believes that music is a universal language, improving understanding between peoples of different cultural backgrounds and helping to bring peace in the world.

Ruth Crawford
Preludes 6 and 9 (1928)
Still in her twenties, Ruth Crawford wrote these compressed, mystical preludes while living in Chicago.

Fannie Dillon
Birds at Dawn (1917)
Born in Denver, Dillon moved to California and wrote this piece inspired by birds in the Sierra Mountains, and notates their songs in the score.

Kui Dong
Earth, Water, Wood, Metal, Fire (2001)**

Vivian Fine
Sinfonia e Fugato (1952)

Gabriela Lena Frank
Nocturno Nazqueno (2014)

Vivian Fung
Glimpses (2006/2016)

Peggy Glanville-Hicks
Prelude for a Pensive Pupil (1958)
Glanville-Hicks was born in Australia and composed prolifically, and also wrote music criticism for the New York Herald Tribune.

Janice Giteck
Tara’s Love Will Melt the Sword (2002)
Giteck says this piece “addresses two female manifestations of Buddha, in particular the Blue Tara-healing Buddha and White Tara-compassionate Buddha.”

Deirdre Gribbin
Unseen (2018)
The title of Irish composer Gribbin’s newest piano piece refers to about eight thousand homeless people in London and their apparent invisibility.

Sofia Gubaidulina
Chaconne (1962)

Elisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre
Keyboard Suite in D minor (1707)
Jacquet de la Guerre enjoyed great success as a composer and keyboardist, and composed operas, cantatas, and music for theater and ballet.

Dobromila Jaskot
Atnongara (2002)

Bernice Johnson Reagon
Study War No More (2009) **

Betsy Jolas
Tango Si (1984)
French-American composer Jolas studied with Milhaud and Messiaen. Her “tango” is dissonant, playful, and brief.

Elena Kats-Chernin
Peggy’s Rag (1996)
Born in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, Kats-Chernin migrated to Australia and also studied in Europe. This rag is dedicated to Peggy Glanville-Hicks.

Vitezslava Kapralova
April Preludes (1937)

Hannah Kendall
On the Chequer’d Field Array’d (2013)

Hanna Kulenty
Smokey One (2016)

Mary Jane Leach
By’m’Bye (2001) **

Tania Leon
Ritual (1987)
Afro-Cuban composer Leon dedicated this piece, her first for piano, to her friends from the Dance Theater of Harlem, Arthur Mitchell and Karel Shook.

Annea Lockwood
Ear-Walking Woman (1996)
Originally from New Zealand, Lockwood wrote this piece on a commission from Sarah Cahill, as a tribute to fellow composer Ruth Crawford.

Nina Makarova
Etudes (1938
Russian composer Makarova, married to the more famous Aram Khachaturian, wrote a set of piano etudes which are rarely if ever performed.

Ursula Mamlok
2000 Notes (2001) **
Born in Berlin, Mamlok fled Nazi Germany and emigrated to Ecuador and then to New York. Cahill co-commissioned this work, which reflects Mamlok’s twelve-tone method.

Bunita Marcus
Julia (1989)
Marcus, a composer in New York, uses the lyrics and melody of the Beatles song “Julia,” about John Lennon’s mother, who encouraged his interest in music.

Žibuoklé Martinaityté
Heights and Depths of Love (2009)
This is the first movement of a piece by young Lithuanian composer Martinaityté. The movement is called “Togetherness.”

Meredith Monk
St. Petersburg Waltz (1997)
Best known as a vocalist and performance artist, Monk says this piece was inspired by her Eastern-European roots.

Pauline Oliveros
Quintuplets Play Pen (2001)**

Maggi Payne
Holding Pattern (2001) **
Raised in Amarillo, Texas, Payne wrote this piece on commission from Sarah in tribute to Ruth Crawford.

Florence Price
Sonata in E minor (1932)
Price was the first African-American woman to have an orchestral work performed by a major American orchestra. Marian Anderson and Leontyne Price were among her champions.

Elena Ruehr
Gin Fizz (2018)
Born in Ann Arbor, Ruehr says of her music that “the idea is that the surface be simple, the structure complex.” This piece was part of Sarah’s project for Terry Riley’s 80th birthday.

Kaija Saariaho
Ballade (2005)

Clara Schumann
Variations op. 20 (1853)
From a young age, Clara Schumann was a virtuoso pianist and composer. After her husband Robert’s death, she toured Europe and beyond as a pianist to support her family. These are variations on a theme by Robert Schumann.

Aida Shirazi
Albumblatt (2017)

Gabriella Smith
new commissioned work **

Linda Catlin Smith
A Nocturne (1995)
Toronto-based Catlin Smith describes her Nocturne: “As I was writing this piece, the material seemed more and more to be disappearing; day disappears into night…”

Ann Southam
Glass Houses No. 7 (1981)
Born in Winnipeg, Southam wrote electronic music and music for strings as well as minimalist works for piano. She said that minimalist, iterative compositions reminded her of "women's work" - repetitive, monotonous tasks such as knitting and cleaning that nevertheless sustain life.