Revolutions Per Minute
R.P.M. on KALW RADIO
San Francisco 91.7 FM
Sunday Nights from 6-8 PM PT
Sarah Cahill is a pianist and music critic whose radio program was named “One of the Hundred Best Things in the Bay Area” by Citysearch online magazine. Sarah now joins KALW, and her new program, called “Revolutions Per Minute,” focuses on the relationships between classical music and new music, encompassing interviews with musicians and composers, historical performances, and exciting recordings outside the mainstream.
Selections From The Archive
Radical Connections: Meredith Monk And Björk
If you go to your local record store, you’ll find Meredith Monk and Björk in completely separate categories, but as you’re about to hear, they’ve got a lot in common. Born a generation apart, both women have gained a reputation for creating adventurous music for the human voice, work that has taken them beyond the concert stage and into the realms of theater, film, visual art, dance, and performance art. Over the course of this hour-long program, these two artists share personal stories and trade ideas about music alongside illustrative samples drawn from their extensive recorded catalogues.
Radical Connections:
Elliott Carter And Phil Lesh
Curious how Elliott Carter, one of our most venerable composers of music for the concert hall, and Phil Lesh, best known as the bass player for the Grateful Dead, ever crossed paths? Though you might not ordinarily connect these two composers, there are some surprising musical links between them, supported by a friendship of many years.
Richard Goode talks
about Debussy Preludes Book II
Before he performed a concert at Davies Hall with Debussy’s second book of Preludes, Richard Goode and I met at a practise room backstage at Davies where he discussed these works and demonstrated various passages.
Kaija Saariaho Interview
Saariaho was in the Bay Area to deliver the Bloch lectures at UC Berkeley, and came to the KALW studios for a two-hour program about her work.
Pauline Oliveros
This is just the first hour of a two-hour program with Oliveros, in which she plays her accordion and leads the listening audience in a sonic meditation exercise. I’m still searching for the second hour, and will post it as soon as it turns up.
John Adams talks about
The Gospel According to the Other Mary
This was right after the premiere of Adams’ The Gospel According to the Other Mary, and we also talk about his City Noir and other works.
Garrick Ohlsson talks
about Chopin Oliveros
This was actually when I hosted a show at KPFA (I left there in 2001 and started at KALW in 2002). Ohlsson came to the performance studio for a two-hour program about Chopin, and didn’t bring any scores with him- everything he plays here is from memory. Again, frustratingly, this is just the first hour of a two-hour show, and eventually I will find the second hour and post it here.
Meredith Monk Interview
Meredith Monk was in town for a performance, and she graciously came to the studio for a two-hour interview. Once again, I could only find this first hour.
Joseph Kerman
talks about William Byrd
This was the third or fourth time the great musicologist and author Joseph Kerman came to KALW to co-host a program with me. In this case the topic was William Byrd, the composer with whose work Kerman began his career.
“Apart from being an exceptional pianist and muse to scores of inventive composers, Sarah Cahill is a first-rate communicator who specializes in connecting the music she plays to broader streams of everyday life.”
— Time Out New York —