José Echániz
Pianist José Echániz (1905-1969), a Cuban-born child prodigy, studied at the Falcon Conservatory in Havana, where he was awarded the title “professor of piano” at age 14. During the 1920s, he appeared at Carnegie Hall, toured U.S. cities, and appeared in Paris, The Hague, Amsterdam, and Madrid. During the 1930’s, he was a featured soloist with orchestras in Philadelphia, Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and New Orleans. he appeared under the batons of such distinguished conductors as Iturbi, Mitropoulos, Kleiber, Leinsdorf, and others. Echániz joined the Eastman School faculty in 1944. As a teacher, he believed in a solid grounding in the classical repertory. His students commonly undertook the entire Well Tempered Clavier or, as a class, the 27 concertos of Mozart. Throughout his 25-year teaching career, Echániz maintained an active career as a recitalist in Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean, as an orchestral soloist, and as a recording artist.
