Pianist Sarah Cahill performs Pauline Oliveros' piece Quintuplets Play Pen: Homage to Ruth Crawford (2001). Cahill at the time spoke of the piece as "a playful polyrhythmic dance. There are layers of counterpoint: a bass line which rings out with help from the sostenuto pedal (Crawfod was very fond of this particular pedal); steady staccato quintuplets; and a delicate melody in sixteenth notes. There are fifteen distinct sections, of ten measures each. I think of their individual characters like members of a dysfunctional family. The closing is vituosic and difficult, with a surprise ending. Pauline remarked that the piece creates a kind of play pen for the ten fingers. I had insisted on a notated piece, since I can't improvise (or won't), and this is the wonderful result. The work is one of a group commissioned by me from various composers in 2001 to honor the centennial of composer and folklorist Ruth Crawford Seeger (1901 - 1953)."

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