INK | TEXTURA

The strikingly imaginative debut album by Merz Trio embroiders Ravel's iconic Piano Trio with spoken texts and related musical pieces by Debussy, Nadia and Lili Boulanger, Mélanie Bonis, and others. The recording vividly evokes a particular time in French cultural history and invites the listener to vicariously partake of it; further to that, words by Jean Cocteau, Alain-Fournier, and Guillaume Apollinaire can't help but imbue the project with period character. All credit, then, to pianist Lee Dionne, violinist Brigid Coleridge, and cellist Julia Yang for conceiving such a stimulating project when they could just as easily have presented two or three musical works and left it at that. With thoughtfully selected texts read by the trio members, INK becomes a considerably more engaging affair as a result.