Tom Erdmann, reporter

A late addition to the ITG Conference, Christopher Gekker and Eric Ewazen performed a program of select pieces from the composer's repertoire. With only one week's preparation, and for Gekker coming in the middle of a series of other performances in Washington D.C., the two artists performed an outstanding program of music that emphasized line, phrase, subtle control of nuance, and artistic statement above wanton display of technique.

Gekker is well known to us as an international soloist with over 100 recordings to his credit (not to mention the current professor of music at the University of Maryland and former teacher at Juilliard, the Manhattan School of Music, and Columbia University). In this recital he meticulously executed and powerfully performed a number of works with style and grace leaving the hall to a hail and hearty standing ovation that was not just well deserved, but well earned.

As a pianist Ewazen proved himself more than capable. He was able to make his own composed motivic fragments interlock into the majestic harmonic style for which he is well known. His lines brought shades of Walter Hartley's triumphantly shaded performances of his own duo music, from the piano chair, to mind.

The works performed began with a trumpet and piano version of Ewazen's New England Portraits. Originally for voice and piano, this work takes the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Malay and sets it to some of the composer's most chromatic imagery. A highlight of the concert was a performance of the original ending, since rejected, to the composer's second movement of his Sonata for Trumpet and Piano. With bell tones present (since deleted) it was interesting to see how Ewazen's compositional thought process developed into the published version.

Closing the concert was Hymn to the Lost and Living, Ewazen's artistic response to 9/11. Originally written for the Air Force Band in Langley, VA, it was a setting of the work for solo organ that inspired Gekker to seek out the composer, whom he has known and worked with for over 30 years, to create a setting for trumpet and organ. The piano and trumpet version was triumphantly and movingly rendered.

Throughout the recital the two artists interspersed their playing with humorous stories that not only delighted, but also informed about not only Ewazen's music and compositional acumen, but also about practical performance considerations. The standing room only hall was left with a memory etched forever on the aural palette.