sé·ance   n.  A meeting of people to receive spiritualistic messages.

Other Minds invented the New Music Séance in 2005 and is responding to popular demand for an encore. The date will be Saturday, February 24, 2007.

Once again the 1895 Arts & Crafts style Swedenborgian Church of San Francisco, with its handmade chairs, candlelit interior and rustic décor, will be the site of three concerts of rarely-heard gems of the past 100 years. Whereas the Other Minds Music Festival gives us a snap-shot of current trends by living composers, our Séance is designed to channel new music’s progenitors alongside composers working today.

Last year’s performers, Sarah Cahill, solo piano, and Kate Stenberg and Eva-Maria Zimmermann (violin-piano duo) will return in 2007 to perform a day-long marathon sure to have you levitating.

This year Sarah Cahill will introduce the earliest score of composer, painter and humanistic astrologer Dane Rudhyar (1895-1985). His Prayer, Op. 1, an Impressionist work in several movements, was composed in Paris in 1914 and was signed under his birth name Daniel Chennevière. Cahill also will perform such rarities as Peggy Glanville-Hicks’ Prelude for a Pensive Pupil, Ned Rorem’s Three Barcarolles, and Ernst Bacon’s Pig Town Fling. In addition there will be a generous selection of music by living composers such as Evan Ziporyn, David Mahler, Howard Skempton, Peter Garland, and Hans Otte. 

Stenberg and Zimmermann have been preparing rarely-heard music for violin and piano by Josef Matthias Hauer (1883-1959), the Viennese composer whose hypnotic work sounds like a cross between Satie and Webern, sometimes presaging the late music of Morton Feldman. The duo also will perform Webern’s Four Pieces, Op. 7 (1910), George Antheil’s Sonata No. 2 for Violin, Piano and Drums (1923), Alan Hovhaness’ Kirghiz Suite (1951), Danish maverick Pelle Gudmundsen-Holmgreen’s Double (1991), Gabriela Frank’s Sueños de Chambi (2002) and the world premiere of Don (2006) by Ronald Bruce Smith. The Swiss-born pianist Zimmermann also will perform solo music by her countryman Frank Martin, Wladimir Vogel and others. Séance producer Charles Amirkhanian makes cameo appearances on drums and piano in music by Antheil and Percy Grainger.

MUSICIANS

Sarah Cahill, piano

Hailed as “the Bay Area's queen of contemporary piano music” by San Francisco Classical Voice, Sarah Cahill specializes in new American music as well as the American experimental tradition, and has commissioned, premiered, and recorded numerous important compositions for solo piano.  Composers who have dedicated works to her include John Adams, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Terry Riley, Annea Lockwood, and Evan Ziporyn, and she has premiered pieces by Lou Harrison, Julia Wolfe, Ingram Marshall, Toshi Ichiyanagi, Ursula Mamlok, George Lewis, Leo Ornstein, and many others. 

She has performed at the Other Minds Music Festival, the Phillips Collection, Pacific Crossings Festival in Tokyo, and at the Spoleto Festival USA.  Recent appearances include Santa Fe New Music, REDCAT Theater at Disney Hall, and the Nuovi Spazi Musicali festival in Rome.  She often performs as a duo with pianist Joseph Kubera; they were recently featured at the Pacific Crossings Festival in Tokyo and Kanazawa, and will travel with Terry Riley in April to play his music at the Triptych Festival in Edinburgh, Scotland.  Also in April, Sarah will be prepared piano soloist in Arvo Part’s Tabula Rasa with the New Century Chamber Orchestra.

Sarah has recorded albums of music by Ravel, Cowell, Ruth Crawford and Johanna Beyer, and Leo Ornstein for New Albion Records.  She has also recorded for the Tzadik, CRI, New World, Albany, Artifact, and Cold Blue labels.  Her radio show, Then & Now, can be heard every Sunday evening from 8 to 10 pm on KALW (streaming audio at www.kalw.org).  Her website is www.sarahcahill.com.

Kate Stenberg, violin

Violinist Kate Stenberg's career as a soloist and chamber musician has spanned a broad spectrum of styles with particular emphasis on contemporary music.  She has performed throughout the U.S. and Europe and currently is most active as first violinist of the Del Sol String Quartet whose recent accomplishments have won them an ASCAP award for Adventurous Programming for Contemporary Music.  She also plays on occasion with the San Francisco Symphony.

Stenberg played violin in the world premiere recording of the complete string quartets of George Antheil and has toured extensively with Del Sol premiering many new works in the U.S., Mexico, Korea and Canada. She also has recorded with Ali Akbar Khan and Stratos. Stenberg's history with Other Minds dates to our first festival where she performed music by Julia Wolfe at Other Minds 1 (1993) with the Alyeska Quartet, and most recently playing the premieres of Per Nørgard and Peter Sculthorpe at OM 12 (2006) with Del Sol.  Her other festival performances include Centre Acanthes, The Banff Centre, Sandpoint, the Music Academy of the West and Tanglewood.

A native of Northern California raised in a dynamic family of professional musicians, she is a graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and received her Master's Degree from the Eastman School of Music where she served on the violin faculty.

Eva-Maria Zimmermann, piano

Swiss Pianist Eva-Maria Zimmermann maintains a career on two continents through performances that are “breathtakingly intense” (Der Bund, Switzerland) and “brilliant and sensitive” (Berner Oberländer).  Her solo appearances include recitals as well as concerto performances with major symphony orchestras such as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.  Winner of the prestigious Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship, Eva-Maria has appeared at international festivals in Israel, the U.S. and Europe including the “Festival Piano en Saintonge” in France, the “Sommerfestspiele Murten” in Switzerland, and the “Yerba Buena International Music Festival” in San Francisco.  Eva-Maria has studied with many distinguished musicians such as Leon Fleisher, György Sebök, Leonard Hokanson and Dominique Merlet.  She graduated with highest honors from the Conservatory of Geneva.

Eva-Maria is a musician of broad interests and in addition to her solo appearances devotes herself to chamber music, lieder recitals, and teaching.  She actively collaborates with Del Sol String Quartet and bass-baritone René Perler and was a founding member of the award-winning Charmillon Piano Quartet.  Many of her chamber music and lieder recitals have been broadcasted in Swiss Radio DRS2 and Radio de la Suisse Romande in such prestigious series as “World Class on DRS2.”  She is also part of the San Francisco-based Stone-Zimmermann violin-piano duo.  As an educator, Eva-Maria has been a faculty member of the University of San Francisco, and currently teaches in the music program at the Nueva School in Hillsborough, California, which was founded by Sir Yehudi Menuhin.  

Eva-Maria spent her early childhood in Indonesia, where her parents were Peace Corps workers.  Being exposed to different cultures and languages from very early on greatly enhanced her understanding of diverse styles of music and art.  Eva-Maria currently lives in SF where she pursues her career while raising a family. For more information visit www.evamariapiano.net