What unites these artists in part is their precocious natural talent. Hiromi enrolled in the Yamaha School of Music at age six and soon began composing. Her teacher introduced her to Erroll Garner and Oscar Peterson when they toured Japan, and she debuted with the Czech Philharmonic in 1993 at age 14. In 1999, at age 20, Hiromi enrolled at Berklee College of Music, where a teacher gave her audition tape to Ahmad Jamal, who was so impressed with her technical mastery that he-produced her first CD. Having met Chick Corea while still in Japan, she later recorded a live Tokyo concert with Corea, and went on to perform and record with Stanley Clarke, while also pursuing a prodigious solo career.

In 1994, at age 16, Castaneda moved from Bogotá to New York and soon discovered Latin jazz, carting his folkloric harp across the Hudson to Cuban descarga sessions in Union City, where he was received as a curiosity but soon proved his ability to improvise in that challenging setting. Before long Castaneda found himself performing with the likes of Gonzalo Rubalcaba, Brazil's bandolim master Hamilton de Holanda, Ivan Lins, John Scofield, Marcus Miller, John Patitucci, saxophonist Miguel Zénon, percussionist Pedrito Martinez, and Paquito D'Rivera, Castaneda's mentor. After several recordings under his own name, Castaneda's work with Hiromi elevates the folkloric Colombian harp to a striking if novel jazz prominence.

They each bring an intense physicality to their playing, whose rapt joy borders on the entranced. Hiromi reaches deep inside the piano to stroke and pluck the strings, and hammers the keyboard with such force that she broke a string on her Yamaha grand during the performance. Castaneda leans into the harp and bends the notes with a feeling that owes much, he says, to the inspiration of bassist Jaco Pastorius. Each brings out the full percussive capacity of their instrument, keying off one another in call-and-response fashion and playing with a manifest joy to which live audiences cannot help but respond.

The playlist closely followed the sequence of their live CD, opening with Castaneda's “A Harp in New York”—a reflection on his unlikely reception there—and “For Jaco,” channeling the bassist's spirit. They moved into Hiromi's “Moonlight Sunshine,” her expressive reflection upon the tsunami-earthquake that wracked Japan in 2011. Hiromi's impish character came through fully with the next selection, John Williams' Star Wars composition “Cantina Band,” wherein barrelhouse meets Brazil and Colombian folkloric. After successive solo turns, they rejoined on stage with “The Elements: Air-Earth-Water-Fire,” a wide-ranging suite whose percussive attack and flamenco stylings owe something to Chick Corea, in a composition Hiromi specifically crafted with Castaneda in mind. The encore was Astor Piazzolla's “Libertango,” a sublime selection displaying the synergy they bring to their collaboration - Michael Stone