Linked Verse (2013 DOWNIE ESHKAR KAISER)

Linked Verse is a piece for music theater that explores the gaps and the overlaps between Japanese and Western ways of being. It features 3D projections that conjure up scenes of Tokyo and Kyoto in Japan and their rough equivalent places in America: New York City and San Francisco.

The music was composed by Jaroslaw Kapuscinski for an unusual pairing of instruments: the Western cello and an ancient Japanese mouth organ called the sho. These were performed respectively by Maya Beiser and Ko Ishikawa.

Linked Verse was commissioned by Stanford University to help inaugurate its new Bing Concert Hall, where it premiered on 7 December 2013.