Header photo credit: Elmar Lemes
Photo by Michael Palma
Lucian Ban - piano / Mat Maneri - viola
When Romanian-born pianist Lucian Ban and Grammy-nominated violinist Mat Maneri joined up for a concert in an opera house in Targu Mures in the middle of Romania’s Transylvania region, the music was, as Jazz Times puts it, “as close as it gets to Goth jazz.”
Released in 2013 by ECM Records, the Transylvanian Concert album features a program of self-penned ballads, blues, hymns and abstract improvisations, the whole informed by the twin traditions of jazz and European chamber music, and album has won critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic, including several Best Album of 2013 awards, and has spawned continuous touring eversince throughout US, Europe, South America and even the Middle East.
Press highlights:
“A lovely and restive new album on ECM – recorded in Mr. Ban’s native land – that reveals their shared interest in enfolding mystery”
“It has its own kind of melancholy beauty, and plenty of wayward exuberance, too”
“Moments of unanticipated beauty”
“One of those records that whisk you away—long tone reveries, pulsing pirouettes, contoured introspection, and gypsy joy. Could be transcendent”
“Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri wrung out not only the great seriousness of this music but also its wit and joy”
“Mesmerizing, evocative and sensually explicit. Listening may stir within you that which you can no longer suppress”
“A gorgeously melodic and moody collaboration”
