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There is a spirit that passes through all the folkloric music of the world. The sounds may differ from region to region and from people to people, but folk music holds deep truths that speak to the connective tissue of humanity. There is something mysteriously universal in the way peasants or, for that matter, jazz musicians approach music. For this double , long time collaborators pianist Lucian Ban and violist Mat Maneri alongside legendary woodwind master John Surman further explore the folk music of Transylvania collected by Béla Bartók more than a hundred years ago. For the past five years the trio has deepened the spirit of their music while touring, as can be heard on their new recordings, Cantica Profana and The Athenaeum Concert (vinyl LP only). From Ban and Maneri's informative liner notes InchOnce we took the music on the road an unfolding of a new musical spirit was happening to us with each concert. Revisiting the dances, carols, dowry songs, doinas and lamentations first recorded in Timisoara in 2018 with each live performance new vistas would open, new forms would spring, themes and instrumental roles would be freely interchanged, a 'pulsing life of peasant-music,' to use Bartok's own words, carrying us forward.Inch Extensive touring allowed the trio to really explore their repertoire. The pieces began to expand and evolve. Surman observed, InchSometimes using small fragments of material and developing those fragments whilst trying to retain the spirit of the original material.Inch Each performance allowed the trio to approach each song in a new and original manner, whether it was dropping the theme entirely or just mixing in subtle hints of the melodies or harmonies to lead the group into new territories. The trio had matured to become a seemingly living musical organism, dancing to their own contemporary folkloric sounds. To find such a dedicated co
