Programs

Jason Eckardt: Echoes' White Veil

"Jason Eckardt's 'Echoes' White Veil' (1996) is a more outgoing and eventful work, with a fast, richly dissonant opening section that melts into a quieter, more variegated finale, full of sparkling figuration and captivating pianissimowriting. The Eckardt also has an improvisatory spirit at times, and Mr. Kigawa played it with the fluidity that a jazz player brings to an extended solo." - Allan Kozinn, The New York Times

"Jason Eckhardt’s Echoes’ White Veil, with the composer in attendance. After the recital, I read that this was inspired by a prose-poem by W.S. Merwin, dealing with echoes and silences (and far too much for this essay). But without that knowledge (or possibly in spite of), the work itself was nerve-rackingly difficult to comprehend, initially endless tumblings of the piano, sometimes seemingly formless. Yet at different points one heard a lyrical, almost Classical line under the tumult, that itself was repeated in a different form later. Who knows if this was the holding device upon which the other echoes and reflections developed? And who knows if this wasn’t implied somehow in the silences of the second section? No guesses hazarded here. Mr. Kigawa seemed to play it faultlessly (I’m only guessing at that, since I haven’t seen the score), and there were certainly moments when I could surmise those echoes." - Harry Rolnick, Concert.Net