Bright Shiny Things Realeases Ink, The Award-Winning Merz Trio's Immersive Debut Album Featuring Ravel's Piano Trio

Media Contact: Paula Mlyn

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 20 2021

 

BRIGHT SHINY THINGS RELEASES INK,

THE AWARD-WINNING MERZ TRIO’S IMMERSIVE DEBUT

ALBUM FEATURING RAVEL’S PIANO TRIO

 

Includes Music of Debussy, Lili and Nadia Boulanger, Josephine Baker, Mélanie Bonis

and Merz Pianist Lee Dionne, Plus Spoken Texts of Pre-WWI Writers

 

NEW YORK, NY–On August 20, 2021, Bright Shiny Things releases INK [BSTC-0148], an immersive exploration of Ravel’s iconic Piano Trio and the period in which it was written that marks the debut album from the award-winning Merz Trio – pianist Lee Dionne, violinist Brigid Coleridge and cellist Julia Yang. In keeping with Merz Trio’s creative programming style, the album’s unique structure intersperses the four movements of Ravel’s trio with new arrangements by the ensemble of works from Vincent Scotto channeled through Josephine Baker, Lili and Nadia Boulanger, Debussy, plus music by French late-Romantic composer Mélanie Bonis and a Ravel-inspired piece by Merz pianist Lee Dionne. To reflect “the voices that were in the air and on the streets in 1914,” the recording also includes excerpts from poems and diaries by the writers Charles Péguy, Anna de Noailles, Léon-Paul Fargue, Jean Cocteau, Alain-Fournier, Blaise Cendrars, and Guillaume Apollinaire. The members of the trio read these excerpts themselves, blending their own voices with those from Ravel’s time in a verbal echo of their musical interpretation of his celebrated Piano Trio.

 

In the program notes for INK, the Merz Trio explains: “INK is an album about listening differently. It is an album about music and words sharing their dark, untidy medium, spilling onto the page as notes and letters and spoken into the world by voices and instruments: their resonances and dissonances. It is about how we put our ear to a distant time and what we might hear there, as well as how we bring these voices into the present, how their conversation creates meaning and space for us to reflect and to hear differently in our own time.”

 

Completed in September 1914 following the August outbreak of World War I, Ravel’s intricate and arresting Piano Trio has remained an influential part of the repertoire since its composition. Especially revered for the ingenuity of its orchestration, the work masterfully balances the three voices even while keeping each distinct in the texture, partially achieved through Ravel’s use of extreme ranges in all parts. His wide-ranging inspirations varied from traditional Basque music – his mother was Basque, and the work was composed in the French Basque commune of Saint-Jean-de-Luz – to Malaysian poetry, and he wrote the piece at breakneck speed before enlisting as a nurse’s aide in the army. As he wrote to Stravinsky, “the idea that I should be leaving at once made me get through five months’ work in five weeks.”

 

The Merz’s superbly informed and high-energy reading of Ravel’s trio is contextualized by evocative French salon pieces that effectively immerse the listener in the atmosphere of Paris on the eve of war. The group made trio arrangements of Vincent Scotto’s 1913 song "Sous les ponts de Paris," modeling their version on Josephine Baker’s to pay tribute to her love of Paris and work as a French Resistance agent; Lili Boulanger's D’un vieux jardin and her sister Nadia’s song “Heures ternes”; and Debussy’s charming piano waltz La plus que lente. The latter work is also a nod to “Les Apaches,” the informal group of musicians, writers and artists that included both Ravel and Léon-Paul Fargue – an excerpt from whose poem “Kiosks” is read on the album – and was especially fascinated by Debussy’s music. Added to those pieces are Mélanie Bonis's "Morning," a short but brilliantly textured trio movement composed in 1907, and a short piece by Merz pianist Lee Dionne called Zortziko/Fandango that explores the traditional Basque “zortziko” dance in 5/8 meter that inspired Ravel’s first movement.

 

TRACK LIST:

 

1. Account of Charles Péguy’s last day in Paris (excerpt)
2. Sous les ponts de Paris (music by Vincent Scotto/Josephine Baker; arr. Merz Trio)
3. Summer Evening (excerpt) (text by Anna de Noailles)
4. D’un vieux jardin (music by Lili Boulanger; arr. Merz Trio)
5. Kiosks (excerpt) (text by Léon-Paul Fargue)
6. Piano Trio in A minor – I. Modéré (music by Maurice Ravel)
7. Preamble (A Rough Draft for an Ars Poetica) (text by Jean Cocteau)
8. Zortziko/Fandango (music by Lee Dionne)
9. Piano Trio in A minor – II. Pantoum: Assez vif (music by Maurice Ravel)
10. Now the Rain (excerpt) (text by Alain-Fournier)
11. Matin, op. 76 (music by Mélanie Bonis)
12. Heures ternes (music by Nadia Boulanger; arr. Merz Trio)
13. Piano Trio in A minor – III. Passacaille: Très large (music by Maurice Ravel)
14. The Prose of the Trans-Siberian (excerpt) (text by Blaise Cendrars)
15. Piano Trio in A minor – IV. Final: Animé (music by Maurice Ravel)
16. La Petite Auto (excerpt) (text by Guillaume Appolinaire)
17. I Write for the Day (excerpt) (text by Anna de Noailles)
18. Le plus que lente, L. 121 (music by Claude Debussy; arr. Merz Trio)

 

ABOUT THE TRIO:

 

Hailed as "artists in the deepest sense of the word" (CutCommon), Merz Trio, first-prize winners of the Concert Artists Guild, Fischoff, and Chesapeake competitions, have been lauded for their "stunning virtuosity… fresh and surprising interpretations" (Reading Eagle), and "perfection of intonation and ensemble" (Hudson Review). Seamlessly tacking between traditional repertoire and the music of our time, the Trio is set apart by their vibrantly dynamic programming, wide-ranging interdisciplinary collaboration, and prolific new arrangements for trio.

 

Upcoming performances include debuts at the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Merkin Hall in NYC, and the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, while ongoing interdisciplinary collaborations include projects with dancer Caroline Copeland, videographer Christopher Kitchen, Sandglass Theater (puppetry), chef David Bouley, director Jon Levin, and mime Emma Jaster. The Trio is also known for their fluid and imaginative integration of music and text in their programming, ranging from their recital-theater piece built around excerpts from Shakespeare's Macbeth ("Those Secret Eyes"), to a forthcoming program, "undiluted days," an exploration of collective grief featuring elegiac trios of Tchaikovsky and Jeffrey Mumford. 

 

Merz Trio are represented by Concert Artists Guild and make their home in Boston.

 

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