To convey the mind of Lady Macbeth just in time for the sainted eve at the end of the month, the resourceful Merz [piano] Trio will lard excerpts and arrangements of Brahms, Charlotte Bray, Schumann, Johannes Maria Staud, and Verdi, along with dance and text from Macbeth, into an immersive cauldron. “Those Secret Eyes,” on October 26 at 8pm in New England Conservatory’s Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theater, will boil over the confines of the chamber music recital.
Winners of the 2019 Concert Artists Guild Competition and gold medalists of the 2019 Fischoff and 2018 Chesapeake Chamber Music Competitions, the Merz is the current professional trio in residence at NEC, and their interdisciplinary approach involves readings, visual arts, and artisanal mélanges of music, wine, and food.
Taking its name from the early 20th-century “Merz pictures” of the German artist Kurt Schwitters, the Trio draws inspiration from his unique style of found-object collage. In keeping with Schwitters’s aesthetic of piecing together fragments, Merz projects link disparate musics, texts, artifacts, visual arts as well as dance, theater, and culinary arts to standard trio repertoire.
Merz Trio presents “Those Secret Eyes”
Sat, October 26th, 2019 | 8:00pm
Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theater, 255 St. Botolph St.
Tickets: Free, RSVP required HERE.
About Merz Trio
Merz Trio’s 2019-2020 season includes performances at major venues in New York, Boston, and Chicago, along with residencies at Snape Maltings and Yellow Barn. Past appearances include NEC’s Jordan Hall, the Kennedy Center’s Terrace Theater, the Melbourne Town Hall, and Aldeburgh’s Jubilee Hall. The Trio has enjoyed festival appearances at the Chesapeake Festival, Olympic Music Festival, and Lake Champlain Music Festival, and residencies at Avaloch Farm Music Institute and Snape Maltings. The Trio has additionally been featured by the BBC’s Radio 3, Australia’s Classic FM, and Chicago’s WFMT Radio.
Merz Trio is committed to passionate, original playing, and thoughtfully curated programming. The Trio presents a wide range of repertoire, both in traditional recitals and in multidisciplinary shows that present music alongside art from other disciplines. In December, 2018, the Trio presented “Those Secret Eyes,” an immersive concert experience based on Shakespeare’s Macbeth, featuring dancer Caroline Copeland at the Kosciuszko Foundation in NYC.
The Trio has been the recipient of several NEC Entrepreneurial Musicianship Grants to support their multidisciplinary endeavors. Past projects include an exploration of trios by Haydn, Schumann, and Johannes Maria Staud alongside visual art of Kurt Schwitters and excerpts from W.G. Sebald’s The Rings of Saturn. Other projects have comprised a multi-course “tasting menu” of short musical selections with crafted food pairings by Chef Hunter Pittman, and an evening of music and multi-course dinner in collaboration with Michelin star chef, David Bouley.
The Trio plans upcoming educational residencies at the Lake Champlain Chamber Music Festival.