2015
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Fri16Jan2015
New Music Gathering
8pmSan Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco
Sarah premieres new commissioned works by Pauline Oliveros, Christine Southworth, Gyan Riley, Samuel Carl Adams, Dylan Mattingly, and Danny Clay at the inaugural New Music Gathering, a three-day event combining concerts, discussions, and presentations about the world of new music, gathering composers and performers from across the country. Sarah’s program celebrates Terry Riley’s eightieth birthday year with new commissioned pieces in his honor as well as Riley’s own Keyboard Studies from the mid-60s and others of his brilliant piano compositions in an hour-long recital.
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Sat24Jan2015
Alexander String Quartet with Sarah Cahill
10amSt. John’s Presbyterian Church, 2727 College Avenue, Berkeley.
Sarah joins the Alexander String Quartet for Mozart’s Piano Quartet No. 1 in G minor, K. 478 and Piano Quartet No. 2 in E-flat Major, K. 493. For two decades, the Alexander String Quartet and Robert Greenberg have brought together a devoted crowd of chamber music enthusiasts on Saturday mornings for events which are part concert, part lecture, part humor and all entertainment. Followers on both sides of the Bay indulge in deep exploration of composers, their works, times and impacts in one of San Francisco Performances’ most popular and enduring series. These enlightening two-hour sessions, designed and written by Robert Greenberg, open with Mr. Greenberg’s musical and historical insights about the composers and their work, liberally peppered with his incisive wit and expansive insights, and conclude with complete performances of the repertoire.
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Thu29Jan2015
A Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80
7:30pmLe Poisson Rouge, 158 Bleecker Street, New York
Sarah performs A Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80, with new commissioned pieces in celebration of Riley’s eightieth birthday year by Pauline Oliveros, Gyan Riley, Samuel Carl Adams, Christine Southworth, Evan Ziporyn, Dylan Mattingly, and Danny Clay. Each of these new works reflects on Riley’s enduring legacy. Sarah also performs Riley’s Keyboard Studies from the mid-60s, Fandango on the Heaven Ladder, and The Philosopher’s Hand, in a transcription by Toon Vandevorst. This concert is part of LPR’s inaugural (New) Classical Series.
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Thu05Feb2015
After Dark - Nocturnal
6pm-10pmThe Exploratorium Piers 15/17 San Francisco, CA
The Exploratorium presents Nocturnal, an event in its After Dark series of Thursday evenings. Sarah, Jerry Kuderna, and other pianists perform music associated with night, including Chopin Nocturnes, Debussy’s Soiree en Grenade, and other night-themed works. 6 to 10 pm.
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Sun15Feb2015
Piano Reverie
3pmPeace United Church of Christ, 900 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA
Sarah performs “Piano Reverie,” a program of assorted mystical and mysterious works including some of Ruth Crawford’s Preludes, excerpts from Larry Polansky’s B’midbar, Philip Collins’ Pleasant Dreaming, Berio’s Feuerklavier, Pauline Oliveros’ A Trilling Piece for Terry, and music by Dane Rudhyar, Lou Harrison, Annea Lockwood, and George Antheil. This concert is part of the New Music Works series.
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Fri06Mar2015Sat07Mar2015
Farther Out
9pm / Doors 8pm 300 Franklin Street San Francisco, CA 94102TERRY RILEY: Keyboard Study No. 2
Fandango on the Heaven Ladder, from The Heaven Ladder Book 7
Terry Riley was born in 1935 in the Sierra Nevada mountains of Northern California, where he lived and began composing amid surroundings of striking natural beauty and spectacular night skies. In California Riley developed pattern music in response to his love for such natural design. His facility for complex pattern-making in art music was buoyed by his virtuosity as a keyboardist. Having come to prominence as a composer in 1964 for In C, his groundbreaking Minimalist work “for any instrument,” Riley moved on to a different track, devoting himself to extended solo keyboard compositions partially dependent on improvisation. He soon won a reputation for weaving dazzlingly intricate threads of music during all-night improvisations on organ and synthesizer. His two Keyboard Studies, which originated from these improv sessions, were printed in 1965—the only studies that exist in manuscript. The organic, looping Keyboard Study No. 2 is rhythmically driven, creating constantly shifting musical landscapes that are at once sonically distinct and layered, essential and expansive.
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Thu12Mar2015
BluePrint New Music Series - Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques
8pmSan Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco
Sarah performs Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques for piano and small orchestra on the BluePrint New Music Series under the direction of Nicole Paiement. Also on the program is the premiere of Robin Estrada’s Pagihip at Pagtaktak and Stephen Paulson’s Bassoon Concerto. Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques (1956) was the first of his major works to create a true synthesis between his music and his passion for ornithology, and in the score he specifies which birds he is quoting with remarkable accuracy.
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Sat14Mar2015
BluePrint New Music Series - Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques
8pmSan Francisco Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak Street, San Francisco
Sarah performs Olivier Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques for piano and small orchestra on the BluePrint New Music Series under the direction of Nicole Paiement. Also on the program is the premiere of Robin Estrada’s Pagihip at Pagtaktak and Stephen Paulson’s Bassoon Concerto. Messiaen’s Oiseaux exotiques (1956) was the first of his major works to create a true synthesis between his music and his passion for ornithology, and in the score he specifies which birds he is quoting with remarkable accuracy.
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Thu19Mar2015
Middlemarch in Spring- onstage discussion
8pmZ Space, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco
Sarah talks with composer Allen Shearer and librettist Claudia Stevens before the premiere of their new opera Middlemarch in Spring, based on George Eliot’s novel. www.middlemarchinspring.com
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Sat28Mar2015
Meredith Monk- onstage conversation
8pmYerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission Street, San Francisco
Sarah talks onstage with iconic composer and performer Meredith Monk after a performance of her evening-length music theater work On Behalf of Nature, a poetic meditation on our intimate connection to nature and the fragility of its ecology. Within this world, Monk evokes the Buddhist notion of the existence of different realm categories—the idea of joining heaven and earth by way of human beings. Drawing additional inspiration from writers and researchers who have sounded the alarm on the precarious state of our global ecology, Monk and her acclaimed Vocal Ensemble create a liminal space where human, natural, and spiritual elements are woven into a delicate whole, illuminating the interconnection and interdependency of us all. www.ybca.org
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Thu09Apr2015
Kronos Quartet- Resonance
7pmExploratorium, Pier 15, San Francisco
Sarah speaks onstage with the Kronos Quartet before their performance as part of the popular Resonance series, curated by Wayne Grim, featuring contemporary musicians and sound artists performing and discussing their ideas, inspirations, and creative processes.
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Thu09Apr2015Fri10Apr2015
SoundBox- Samuel Carl Adams’ Shade Studies
9pmSoundbox, 300 Franklin Street, San Francisco
Sarah performs Shade Studies by Samuel Carl Adams (a piece she commissioned from him last year) in an evening of music combining electronics with acoustic instruments at this new experimental performance space in a former rehearsal room below Davies Hall. Adams, who curated this program, writes: “This concert focuses on works by exciting young composers. Together, the pieces form a multifaceted examination into the way digital culture shapes our music making. Many of the works embrace and utilize digital technology. Tristan Perich’s Observations includes an ensemble of 1-bit microchips that chirp and flicker, creating a brilliant tapestry. Daniel Wohl’s Saint Arc builds a cathedral of sound by sampling and stretching the most intimate whispers of a cello. Clara Iannotta’s Àphones distorts an acoustic ensemble, embracing the extreme sonic spectrum that is more typical of electronic music. Conversely, some of the composers question the world of digital ubiquity and fragmentation. Ted Hearne’s Law of Mosaics uses certain popular music techniques—remixing, needle-dropping, ‘mashups’—to create a disquieting mosaic where climaxes are superimposed, introductions are misplaced, ultimately raising the question: where do we find meaning in the absence of wholes?”
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Sun12Apr2015
Composers Inc. Friendraiser
Sarah performs Henry Cowell’s Exultation and The Trumpet of Angus Og as well as Lou Harrison’s Dance for Lisa Karon in a concert to benefit this long-running collective of composers who present a wide range of performances throughout the year.
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Sat18Apr2015
MIT Sounding: Terry Riley 80th Birthday Concert
7pmMIT Kresge Auditorium, 48 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA
Sarah premieres Evan Ziporyn’s You Are Getting Sleepy, Christine Southworth’s Sparkita and Her Kittens, Elena Ruehr’s In C Too and Keeril Makan’s Before C, all composed in celebration of Terry Riley’s eightieth birthday year. Headlining MIT Sounding, legendary composer Terry Riley makes his second appearance at MIT with a marathon concert celebrating his 80th birthday. This four-hour concert will include the premiere of a reimagined classic, a multi-saxophone live version of Riley’s 1969 Poppy Nogood and the Phantom Band, newly arranged by Evan Ziporyn. Riley himself will perform solo works and in collaboration with Gamelan Galak Tika and Eviyan, and pianist Sarah Cahill will perform new works composed in homage to Riley, including world premieres by Evan Ziporyn and Christine Southworth. Presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) and MIT Sounding performance series.
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Sat23May2015
Acoustica 21- new work by Juraj Kojs
Bakehouse Art Complex, 561 NW 32nd St, Miami, Florida
Sarah premieres Juraj Kojs’ In the Mist and performs new works by Christine Southworth, Evan Ziporyn, Danny Clay, Samuel Carl Adams, and others, all on a white piano at Bakehouse, an intriguing artists collective.
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Sat30May2015
outdoors at Fort Mason
4:30 pmFort Mason, 2 Marina Blvd., San Francisco
As part of the San Francisco International Arts Festival, Sarah performs Pauline Oliveros’ Redwood Shrine and Danny Clay’s Garden Music—two pieces she commissioned to perform outdoors—on a piano positioned on a hillside overlooking the bay.
www.sfiaf.org
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Sat13Jun2015
Ruth Crawford and Marc Blitzstein
7:30 pmKeawalai Congregatonal Church, 5300 Makena Rd., Kihei, Hawaii
Presented by Ebb & Flow Arts, Sarah performs music by Ruth Crawford, Dina Koston, George Antheil, Henry Cowell, Marc Blitzstein, Leo Ornstein, Tania Leon, Christine Southworth, Samuel Carl Adams, and Terry Riley.
www.ebbandflowarts.org
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Sun14Jun2015
modern music workshop
4:30 pmKaahumanu Mall, 2nd floor, Kahului, Hawaii
Sarah leads a workshop about listening to, and performing, 20th century music. Presented by Ebb & Flow Arts.
www.ebbandflowarts.org
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Fri19Jun2015
A Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80
8 pmOld First Church, 1751 Sacramento Street, San Francisco
To celebrate the eightieth birthday of maverick composer-pianist Terry Riley (on June 24th), Sarah performs new works she has commissioned in tribute to Riley, including the West Coast premieres of Evan Ziporyn’s You Are Getting Sleepy, Christine Southworth’s Sparkita and Her Kittens, and Elena Ruehr’s In C Too, along with Danny Clay’s Circle Songs, Samuel Carl Adams’ Shade Studies, Pauline Oliveros’ A Trilling Piece for Terry, Gyan Riley’s Poppy Infinite, and Dylan Mattingly’s YEAR, as well as a few pieces by Terry Riley himself.
www.oldfirstconcerts.org
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Sun21Jun2015
Garden of Memory
5 to 9 pmChapel of the Chimes, 4499 Piedmont Avenue, Oakland
New Music Bay Area presents Garden of Memory, the annual summer solstice concert at the Chapel of the Chimes, a beautiful columbarium and mausoleum designed by Julia Morgan. Performers you can hear during this popular event include Henry Kaiser, Robin Petrie, the William Winant Percussion Group, Gyan Riley, Paul Dresher and Joel Davel, Amy X Neuburg, the ROVA Saxophone Quartet, Orchestra Nostalgico, Dylan Mattingly, Laura Inserra, Maggi Payne, Pamela Z, Wayne Grim, Sarah Cahill, Juraj Kojs, the Del Sol Quartet, and many more. Joshua Kosman of the San Francisco Chronicle calls Garden of Memory “a walk-through fun house of musical and visual splendor.” Pick up a map with performer locations, or just wander freely, discovering a variety of acoustic and electronic music in the four hours before twilight.
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Thu09Jul2015
Gyan Riley residency at The Stone
8 pmThe Stone, Avenue C at Second Street, New York, New York
As part of Gyan Riley’s residency at The Stone, Sarah performs a joint concert with Gyan and Evan Ziporyn, performing Gyan’s Poppy Infinite and premiering a new version of Terry Riley’s Be Kind to One Another (Rag). Gyan joins Sarah for Pauline Oliveros’ A Trilling Piece for Terry, and there will be special surprises with the combined forces of Gyan, Evan, and Sarah. www.thestonenyc.com.
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Sat18Jul2015
Pauline Oliveros and Danny Clay at Flower Piano
noon to 2 pmBotanical Gardens, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA
Outdoors in the botanical gardens, Sarah performs Pauline Oliveros’ Redwood Shrine and Danny Clay’s Garden Music, both written to be played and heard in nature. For twelve days in July, San Francisco Botanical Garden (SFBG) becomes the city’s own outdoor concert hall and everyone is invited to play and listen. From July 9–20, visitors are encouraged to seek out one of the twelve pianos tucked among the many flower-filled gardens within SFBG’s 55 acres and play what they like, from Bach to boogie-woogie. On select days, several pianists including Sarah will be scheduled to perform as well, and the public is welcome to watch the performances.
Flower Piano is the latest project of piano ninjas Mauro ffortissimo and Dean Mermell who together launched Sunset Piano in 2013 when ffortissimo covertly rolled an old grand piano onto the bluffs over Half Moon Bay. Since then, Sunset Piano has expanded this impromptu musical and social experiment, temporarily placing pianos in a wide variety of unexpected natural and urban settings around the Bay Area every year, from the top of Montara Mountain to Market Street. www.sunsetpiano.com
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Fri28Aug2015Sun30Aug2015
recording sessions- Terry Riley album
nighttimeKansas City
Sarah and Regina Schaffer travel to Kansas City to record an album of music by Terry Riley, including five four-hand pieces Sarah commissioned as well as various solo pieces, for the Irritable Hedgehog label.
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Sun20Sep2015
Art in Nature
11 am to 5 pmRedwood Regional Park, Oakland, CA
Art in Nature is a full day interdisciplinary, interactive, site-specific, multi-sensory immersion into art, nature, and the nature of art. It takes place annually along the Stream Trail of Oaklandʼs Redwood Regional Park. The event is free, unplugged, and off the grid.
Stroll along the mile-long Stream Trail, experience art in nature, and delve into the nature of art throughout twelve theme areas featuring music, dance, sculpture, painting, martial arts, poetry, body painting, circus arts, theater, visual arts, storytelling, arts & crafts, kids activities and more. Sarah will play a grand piano in the “Streamside” location. For more information about schedules, Samavesha (which produces this wonderful event), volunteering, and how to get there, visit http://www.samavesha.org/productions/art-in-nature-festival.
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Wed23Sep2015
recital at University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire
7:30 pmGantner Concert Hall, University of Wisconsin- Eau Claire
Sarah performs music from her recent projects “A Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80” and “A Sweeter Music” as well as compositions by Henry Cowell, Ruth Crawford, and Lou Harrison. https://m.facebook.com/UwecMusic?v=events&event_action_context=%7B%22ref%22%3A98%7D
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Thu08Oct2015
Cinco de Mayo at New Keys
8 pmCenter for New Music, 55 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA
Sarah and pianist Regina Schaffer perform Terry Riley’s Cinco de Mayo as part of the fall concert presented by New Keys, an organization dedicated to innovative music for the piano. http://new-keys.org/concert/
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Tue13Oct2015
A Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80
8 pmRoulette, 509 Atlantic Avenue at 3rd Avenue, Brooklyn, New York City
A Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80 pays tribute to composer-pianist Terry Riley’s enduring impact with an evening of new solo piano pieces written in honor of his eightieth birthday by Pauline Oliveros, Samuel Carl Adams, Evan Ziporyn, Christine Southworth, Dylan Mattingly, and Danny Clay, combined with Riley’s own Keyboard Studies from 1964 and Be Kind to One Another from 2009, revised in 2014.
Sarah Cahill has worked closely with Terry Riley since 1997, when she commissioned his four-hand piece Cinco de Mayo for an all-piano festival at Cal Performances celebrating Henry Cowell’s hundredth birthday. She commissioned four more four-hand pieces from Riley to perform with Joseph Kubera, and they toured with him in Edinburgh and Glasgow and performed in his 70th birthday concert at Royce Hall at UCLA. Sarah commissioned a solo piece, Be Kind to One Another, which NPR listed on its 100 Best Songs of 2013, and MSNBC included on its Top Ten Political Songs of 2013. She also wrote the performer notes for Schirmer’s new edition of Terry Riley’s solo piano music.
A Piano Party for Terry Riley at 80 is made possible by Richard Walker, Russ Irwin, the Thendara Foundation, the Ross McKee Foundation, and New Music USA.
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Sun25Oct2015
San Francisco Chamber Music Day
3:15 pmHerbst Theater, Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco
San Francisco Chamber Music Day is a free all-day event (noon to 10 pm) in the newly remodeled Veterans Memorial Building. Join us as we champion a diverse cross-section of the Bay Area’s vibrant musical community in a free, accessible and rewarding atmosphere. Launched in 2008, SFMUSIC DAY has grown into a highly regarded yearly celebration of the ‘state of the art’ of small ensemble activity in our region. More than 30 established and emerging ensembles of various genres—including early music, chamber music, new music, jazz and creative music—will perform concurrently throughout the day in the building’s Herbst Theater and Green Room. Admission is free! And you are free to come and go as you please, moving between spaces and creating a personalized program for the day. With interactive, family-friendly activities, and food trucks just outside the venue, the event will delight new listeners and seasoned concertgoers of all ages and backgrounds. This year we celebrate San Francisco’s key historical role as a ‘port of call’ and cultural epicenter of the Pacific Rim with a focus on Asian-American music viewed through an open-ended theme of hybridity and musical migration. Two special anniversaries—the 70th of the historic United Nations Charter, signed in the Veterans Memorial Building in 1945 and taking effect on October 24 that year, and the 35th anniversary of the Asian American Jazz Festival—provide a particularly inspiring ethos. And it is under this guiding spirit that we proudly unite the extraordinarily wide-ranging musical culture of the Bay Area and invite you all to enjoy San Francisco’s latest cultural crown jewel, free of charge. Sarah and Regina will perform a twenty-minute set of music by Terry Riley, in celebration of his eightieth birthday this year. A full schedule is at http://www.sffcm.org/concerts/sfmusic-day/schedule/
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Fri13Nov2015
duo recital with violinist Stuart Canin
8 pmOld First Church, 1751 Sacramento Street at Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA
Brahms Sonata in A major, Op. 100
Prokofiev Sonata in D major, Op. 94
Stravinsky Duo Concertant
and other worksViolinist Stuart Canin and Sarah Cahill join forces for an evening of Brahms, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, as well as various bonbons from Fritz Kreisler and others. Stuart Canin studied Stravinsky’s Duo Concertant with Samuel Dushkin, the work’s dedicatee and frequent Stravinsky collaborator, so he performs the piece with special insight. The former Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Opera, Canin was a founder of New Century Chamber Orchestra in San Francisco. He was the first recitalist to perform on the Heifetz Guarnerius violin given to the City of San Francisco after the death of the famed Jascha Heifetz, and had the distinction of playing a command performance at the Potsdam Conference for U.S. President Truman, British Prime Minster Churchill, and Russian Premier Josef Stalin. He has taught at the University of California at Santa Barbara and Oberlin Conservatory of Music. In 1970 Seiji Ozawa appointed him Concertmaster of the San Francisco Symphony, where he remained for ten years, and in 1992 he founded the New Century Chamber Orchestra.
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Sun22Nov2015
Terry Riley in Grand Forks
2 pmNorth Dakota Museum of Art, 261 Centennial Drive, Stop 7305, Grand Forks, North Dakota. http://www.ndmoa.com/ConcertSeries/index.html
Sarah returns to this innovative and inspiring museum with a program celebrating Terry Riley’s eightieth birthday year, including his 1964 Keyboard Studies and his 1994 Fandango on the Heaven Ladder, along with new commissioned works by Samuel Carl Adams, Pauline Oliveros, Danny Clay, Evan Ziporyn, Christine Southworth, and others.
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Mon23Nov2015
Haydn and Debussy
7:30 pmMayville State University, 330 3rd St NE, Mayville, North Dakota
Sarah performs a classical program including works by Haydn, Debussy, Percy Grainger, and Carl Nielsen.
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Fri18Dec2015Tue22Dec2015
recording sessions- Terry Riley album
all day and all nightKansas City
Sarah returns to Kansas City to record more music for an upcoming multi-CD release on the Irritable Hedgehog label, featuring Terry Riley’s piano music from 1958 to 2010 and new pieces inspired by Terry Riley. During these sessions, Sarah is recording works by Gyan Riley, Samuel Carl Adams, Dylan Mattingly, Christine Southworth, Evan Ziporyn, Elena Ruehr, and Keeril Makan, along with Terry Riley’s own Two Pieces from 1958/1959.