Sarah Cahill’s
Backstage Pass
Three extraordinary conversations
About the Event
Join Sarah Cahill in conversations with great artists to explore the magic behind the music!
Have you ever wondered how artists prepare and create their performances? In this series we break down the barriers of genre and style with performing artists, revealing the secret processes behind their music. The conversations are for the live concert audience, and we encourage audience participation with questions and direct interaction as time permits.
Our intention is to create a “backstage pass” for the audience by inviting YOU into a welcoming space for active listening, with a glimpse into personal artistic processes and engaging music-making.
Dates and Times
STELLA CHEN, MATTHEW LIPMAN, BRANNON CHO TRIO
- Sunday, March 8 | 5:30 pm (immediately following the 3:00 pm concert)
The Presidio Theater
BUY NOW
ANGELA HEWITT, piano
- Sunday, March 15 | 2 pm (PRIOR to the 3:00 pm concert)
Herbst Theater
BUY NOW
NATHAN MELZER, violin
- Sunday, April 19 | 5:30 pm (immediately following the 3:00 pm concert)
The Presidio Theater
BUY NOW
Who should attend?
If you love music and want to learn more about it, Backstage Pass is for you!
How should I prepare?
No preparation is required! Just come and enjoy a spirited discussion among talented musicians.
Is there a cost?
There is no cost for the conversation, but you must have a ticket to the concert in order to attend.
DISCOUNT TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE FOR AMN PATRONS!
How do I attend?
Click the links to purchase your ticket at City Box Office.
Use discount code “BACKSTAGE” to get 20% off the ticket price.
Meet the Mentor
Sarah Cahill, hailed as “a sterling pianist and an intrepid illuminator of the classical avant-garde” by The New York Times and “a brilliant and charismatic advocate for modern and contemporary composers” by Time Out New York, 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. Keyboard Magazine writes, “Through her inspired interpretation of works across the 20th and 21st centuries, Cahill has been instrumental in bringing to life the music of many of our greatest living composers.” She was named a 2018 Champion of New Music by the American Composers Forum (ACF).
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 latest project is The Future is Female, an investigation and reframing of the piano literature featuring more than seventy compositions by women around the globe, from the Baroque to the present day, including new commissioned works.
Sarah Cahill’s radio show, Revolutions Per Minute, can be heard every Sunday evening from 8 to 10 pm on KALW, 91.7 FM in San Francisco. The program focuses on the relationships between classical music and new music, encompassing interviews with musicians and composers, historical performances, and recordings outside the mainstream. Cahill is on the faculty of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and is a regular pre-concert speaker with the San Francisco Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Learn more about Sarah at sarahcahill.com.
Workshop Materials
Sunday, March 8, 2026 | Presidio Theater
STELLA CHEN, MATTHEW LIPMAN, BRANNON CHO TRIO
In 2023, acclaimed violinist Stella Chen, violist Matthew Lipman, and cellist Brannon Cho formed a string trio that performed for the first time at the Casals Forum in Kronberg, Germany, and has since debuted in New York, Boston, Toronto, and Chicago (Ravinia).
Sunday, March 15, 2026 | Herbst Theater
ANGELA HEWITT
One of the world’s leading concert pianists, Angela Hewitt appears in recital and as soloist with major orchestras throughout Europe, the Americas, Australia, and Asia. Her interpretations of the music of J.S. Bach have established her as one of the composer’s foremost interpreters of our time.
(photo: James Katz)
Sunday, April 19, 2026 | Presidio Theater
NATHAN MELZER
Winner of the 2023 Concert Artist Guild Competition, major prize winner at the 2022 Sibelius and Singapore International Violin Competitions, recipient of the Salon de Virtuosi Career Grant, and youngest ever to win the Windsor Festival Competition, violinist Nathan Meltzer is establishing a holistic and multi-faceted career as both a soloist and chamber musician, with passions for both standard and contemporary repertoire.
Sarah Cahill’s Backstage Pass
is a partnership with
Chamber Music San Francisco
Wednesday, Apr 9, 2025
Conductor Marin Alsop and Pianist Gabriela Montero
One of the foremost conductors of our time, Marin Alsop is a powerful and inspiring voice. Convinced that music has the power to change lives, she is internationally recognized for her innovative approach to programming and audience development, deep commitment to education, and championing of music’s importance in the world. The first woman to serve as the head of major orchestras in the United States, South America, Austria, and Great Britain, she is, as the New York Times put it, not only “a formidable musician and a powerful communicator” but also “a conductor with a vision.”
Maestra Alsop will be leading the San Francisco Symphony in an exhilarating musical journey that spans the United States, Venezuela, and Mexico, following the crosscurrents and commonalities of the countries’ many musical traditions. Attendees will learn more about the motivations and inspiration behind this program.
(Photo: Nancy Horowitz)
Gabriela Montero’s visionary interpretations and unique compositional gifts have garnered her critical acclaim and a devoted following on the world stage. Anthony Tommasini remarked in The New York Times that “Montero’s playing had everything: crackling rhythmic brio, subtle shadings, steely power…soulful lyricism…unsentimental expressivity.”
Recipient of the 2018 Heidelberger Frühling Music Prize, Montero’s recent and forthcoming highlights include debut invitations to perform with the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, San Francisco Symphony, Minnesota Orchestra, New World Symphony, New Zealand Symphony, and the Orchestre National de France; an extensive European tour with the City of Birmingham Symphony and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla; residencies with the Sao Paolo, Prague Radio, and Basel symphonies, as well as regular appearances at the National Arts Centre of Canada where she was appointed Creative Partner to the organisation for four years from the 2020-2021 season.
(Photo: Anders Brogaard)
WATCH HIGHLIGHT
Monday, Apr 22, 2024
Composer and Cellist Theresa Wong
Theresa Wong is a composer, cellist, and vocalist active at the intersection of composition, improvisation, and the synergy of multiple disciplines. Her works include Fluency of Trees for solo cello and voice, premiered at the Other Minds Festival in 2022, She Dances Naked Under Palm Trees, commissioned by pianist Sarah Cahill, and Harbors, co-composed with Long String Instrument inventor Ellen Fullman and chosen as one of Wire’s top 50 releases of 2020. In 2022, Wong was invited to be the inaugural Sound/scapes artist at the San Francisco Asian Art Museum. Her multimedia piece The Unlearning, 21 songs inspired by Goya’s Disasters of War etchings, premiered in 2013 at Roulette in Brooklyn and was also featured in the 2016 New Frequencies Festival at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.
Recent commissions include works for San Francisco Girls Chorus, NakedEye Ensemble, Long Beach Opera, Del Sol Quartet, and Splinter Reeds. She has shared her work internationally at venues including Fondation Cartier in Paris, Cafe Oto and Barbican Centre in London, Fabbrica Europa Festival in Florence, Sydney Festival, and The Stone in New York City. Wong is currently based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
WATCH NOW
Monday, Jan 22, 2024
Guitarist Jason Vieaux
Grammy-winner Jason Vieaux, “among the elite of today’s classical guitarists” (Gramophone), is described by NPR as “perhaps the most precise and soulful classical guitarist of his generation.” Jason is known for his arrangements of pop music for the classical guitar, using its almost orchestral capacities to build texture and characterization. We’ll explore the process with him and find out what inspires these cross-genre explorations.
WATCH NOW
Thank you to San Francisco Performances for supporting this program.
Monday, Nov 20, 2023
Composer Lisa Mezzacappa
Guest Artist Lisa Mezzacappa is a San Francisco Bay Area-based composer, bassist, bandleader, and producer. Called “one of the most imaginative figures on the Bay Area creative jazz scene” by The Mercury News and “a Bay Area treasure” by KQED public radio, she has been an active part of California’s vibrant music community for nearly 20 years. Mezzacappa’s activities as a composer and bandleader include ethereal chamber music, electro-acoustic works, avant-garde jazz, music for groups from duo to large ensemble, and collaborations with film, dance and visual art.
WATCH NOW
Monday, Oct 16, 2023
Singer Dashon Burton
A multiple award-winning singer, Guest Artist Dashon Burton won his second Grammy Award in March 2021 for Best Classical Solo Vocal Album with his performance featured in Dame Ethyl Smyth’s masterwork The Prison with The Experiential Orchestra (Chandos). As an original member of the groundbreaking vocal ensemble Roomful of Teeth, he won his first Grammy Award for their inaugural recording of all new commissions.
WATCH NOW
Thank you to San Francisco Performances for supporting this program.