Evento

Mandorla Music presents the Çesni Trio

Tev Stevig - tanbur, fretless guitar, oud, saz
Michael K. Harrist - contrabass, yayli tanbur, ney
Fabio Pirozzolo - darbuka, bendir, cajon, tombak, armenian dhol

Stevig and Harrist first met in Istanbul in 2010. Back home in Boston, MA they found themselves playing and studying Ottoman art music together in Orkestra Marhaba. As an idea for a trio began to take hold, the group found a deep kinship with Pirozzolo and Çesni Trio was born.

A modal music tradition, Türk sanat müzii (Turkish art music) developed in the urban areas of the Ottoman Empire and has a history of over 500 years. The tradition includes a wide range of repertoire, composers, and practitioners. Çesni Trio draws from this great tradition and the more modern stylings of contemporary musician-composers such as Erkan Our, Ross Daly, Murat Aydemir, and Efrén López.

At turns romantic and elegant, vivacious and playful, the music of Çesni Trio is grounded in the flavors (çeniler) of Turkish makam music while remaining deeply personal and contemporary. The ensemble guides the listener from dove-tailing contemplative melodies to odd-metered tunes that throw caution to the wind.