“TRANSYLVANIAN DANCE” by Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri out now on ECM Records

Alex Harding & Lucian Ban “BLUTOPIA” featuring BOB STEWART out now Sunnyside Records
April 24, 2024

“TRANSYLVANIAN DANCE” by Lucian Ban & Mat Maneri out now on ECM Records

September 2024 2023 → On their second ECM duo album Romanian pianist Lucian Ban and US violist Mat Maneri find fresh inspiration as they follow the trail of Béla Bartók, revisiting the folk music that spurred the imagination of the great Hungarian composer who, in the early 20th century, collected and transcribed numerous pieces from Transylvania. For the duo these songs have become “springboards and sources of melodic material” for arrangements “that capture the spirit of the original yet allow us to improvise and bring our own world to them. If you go deeper into the source material, new vistas open up. These folk songs teach us many things.” (Steve Lake, album liner notes). Recorded live in October 2022 in the context of the Retracing Bartók project in Timișoara, these performances also bear testimony to the finely attuned understanding that Lucian Ban and Mat Maneri have achieved in their long-running musical partnership.

Get the album here:  ECM