Ara Dinkjian - oud Tamer Pinabasi - kanun Ismail Lumanovski - clarinet The Secret Trio is made up of three astounding musicians who came together to create a new type of chamber music, combining the elements of sound, texture and rhythm with new and interesting approaches to their instruments. Not bound to a single tradition, they perform a collection of original pieces and traditional melodies that fuses the microtonal modes and improvisation of the Middle East, dance beats of the Balkans, and elements of jazz, Rock, classical and world music. The delicate harmonies, rapid-fire synchrony and intricate counterpoint developed by a trio of musicians with separate roots in Turkish, Armenian and Macedonian Roma music is extraordinary. By inventing new ways to play percussively on fundamentally melodic instruments, the ensemble, full of rhythm and drive, harmony and counterpoint, never sounds like only three instruments. In that the energy of live music is essential to the ensemble’s ideology, this recording was made without the use of any overdubs in order to capture the excitement of their live concerts.