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September 2025 → For this double release, 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. Taking the music on the road, the trio has deepened the spirit of their music…

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…

MAY 2024 → The new recording, BLUTOPIA showcases the leaders’ attuned rapport developed over decades of collaborations into an album that transcends the expectations of the jazz genre. The music on Blutopia is mysterious yet rooted, with legendary Bob Stewart tuba speaking of the whole history of jazz, yet Ban’s use of the Fender Rhodes and Mat Maneri’s electronic effects giving a contemporary,…

MAY 2023 → Nearly ninety years after its opening in Paris at Opera Garnier, Transylvanian expat pianist Lucian Ban and American violist Mat Maneri present a radical re-imagination of George Enescu’s famous Oedipe opera. To reinvent Oedipe for the 21st century, Ban and Maneri streamlined Enescu’s score for a smaller, more flexible ensemble and knew…