“It cannot be denied that what we heard on Saturday night was an immediately and persistently engaging work for piano and strings that was rhythmically vital, melodically attractive and emotionally gratifying. Midway through its 15 minute course, Montgomery places a lengthy solo cadenza which is partly composed, but partly left open to the soloist’s improvisation. The result was both tightly integrated into the piece’s recurring themes and motifs, yet constantly surprising in its shifts of mood and unexpected turns of harmony. ‘Who,’ one is left asking oneself, ‘can be compared to Awadagin Pratt?'”