Music for Piano by Luciano Chessa

Performance by Sarah Cahill and Luciano Chessa.

Luciano Chessa is an Italian composer, musicologist, conductor, performance artist, pianist, and musical saw/Vietnamese dan bau soloist. Recent compositions include the experimental opera Cena oltranzista nel castelletto al lago produced for the TRANSART Festival in Bolzano, Italy: a work lasting 60+ hours (including  55 hours of fasting) accessible in its entirety via 24hrs/day live streaming; Squeeze! Squeeze! Squeeze!, a large-scale work inspired by Melville’s Moby Dick; and A Heavenly Act, an opera with original video by Kalup Linzy commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Sarah Cahill, recently called “fiercely gifted” by the New York Times and “as tenacious and committed an advocate as any composer could dream of” by the San Francisco Chronicle, has commissioned, premiered, and recorded numerous compositions for solo piano. Composers who have dedicated works to her include John Adams, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Pauline Oliveros, Annea Lockwood, and Evan Ziporyn, and she has also premiered pieces by Lou Harrison, Julia Wolfe, Ingram Marshall, Toshi Ichiyanagi, George Lewis, Leo Ornstein, and many others.