The Secret Trio in Montreal: A Living Dialogue of Roots and Friendship

aydincioglu
3 days ago
5 min read

Photo credits: Neerav / Centre des Musiciens du Monde — The Secret Trio concert at Église Saint-Enfant-Jésus du Mile-End, Montreal. — **Photo credits:** Neerav / Centre des Musiciens du Monde — The Secret Trio concert at Église Saint-Enfant-Jésus du Mile-End, Montreal.

We are pleased to welcome the exceptional musicians of The Secret Trio—Ara Dinkjian, Ismail Lumanovski, and Tamer Pınarbaşı—as part of the 8th edition of the Festival des Musiciens du Monde 2026, under this year’s theme, Racines / Roots.

On 29 May at 20:00, as part of the “Concerts en salle seulement” series at the Église Saint-Enfant-Jésus du Mile-End in Montreal, The Secret Trio performed before a full and engaged audience. Within the church’s authentic and atmospheric setting, the three virtuosos brought together a distinctive chamber music language that moves fluidly between original compositions and the musical heritages of Middle Eastern, Armenian, Turkish, and Balkan traditions, alongside an equally central role for jazz, contemporary music, and improvisation. Each musician contributed individually developed, unique playing styles, blending them into a shared musical expression.

As the Turquebec Cultural and Friendship Association, we had the privilege of inviting Tamer Pınarbaşı and Minor Empire in 2022 for the 99th anniversary of the Turkish Republic Day Ball, alongside Avi Bortnick, widely known for his collaborations within the jam-oriented projects of John Scofield. We are now honoured to continue this journey by partnering with the Centre des musiciens du monde for the 8th edition of the festival. It is within this context of roots, memory, and musical exchange that we experience The Secret Trio’s concert and open a conversation with Ara Dinkjian.

Since their debut album Soundscapes (2012), followed by Three of Us (2015) and Coexist (2022), the trio has shaped a musical vision centred on dialogue and cultural unity. Their most recent release, Old Friends (2025), continues this path, weaving Eastern microtonal modes with Western musical forms and reflecting a long-standing international presence that resonates with audiences worldwide.

For the first time in Montreal, The Secret Trio appeared on stage as a unified ensemble, offering a performance marked by energetic brilliance, a sense of magic, and emotional depth. For many listeners, Ara Dinkjian’s compositions are already well known across numerous countries, living within a shared cultural memory that spans generations. For first-time listeners, the trio revealed a strong sense of rooted friendship and artistic humility, along with a direct and immediate connection with the audience. As the audience found themselves immersed in moments of joy and engagement, they opened the door to The Secret Trio’s captivating musical world. Ara Dinkjian further deepened this intimacy through brief stories between pieces, sharing memories of friendship, musical gatherings, and the origins of their songs, while also expressing gratitude to the audience for being present, emphasizing that this music is made for its listeners, and that without them it could not truly exist.

The opening piece, Hicaz Saz Semai, set the tone for The Secret Trio’s concert. The program then unfolded as a rich and diverse musical journey, featuring original compositions such as Invisible Lover, Slide Dance, Tamer Pınarbaşı’s Crosswinds, and Warm, alongside interpretations of traditional and contemporary works including Vazgeçtim, Hakim Bey, Sabah Olmadan, Zülfü Livaneli’s Leylim Ley, as well as traditional pieces such as Şeker Oğlan and Aşık Veysel’s Kara Toprak.

Ismail Lumanovski ignited the atmosphere with his unmistakable Balkan fire, his G clarinet lines cutting through the space with grace and brilliance. The oud of Ara Dinkjian held the musical ground steady—deep, resonant, and anchoring—sustaining a sense of continuity beneath the movement through both his playful simplicity and the complex forms of his compositions and interpretations. Between them, Tamer Pınarbaşı moved with playful precision, weaving intricate responses that both challenged and embraced Lumanovski’s intensity, shaping a dialogue of tension, humour, and shared instinct.

The last piece before the encore, titled For Alexis, from his 2013 album Finding Songs, was among the performed works—a composition written for a Syrian student of Ara Dinkjian. It was conceived as a musical gift in response to her dedicated oud practice and increasingly fluent performances. As her practice developed with ease and confidence, he responded by composing a more complex and demanding piece, which ultimately became a reflection of his mastery expressed through her performance and dedication.

Within the festival’s context, we spoke with Ara Dinkjian for Blog Turquebec about how The Secret Trio reflects on shaping their music as a shared creative space—rooted in everyday life, where friendship extends beyond the stage into shared moments and simple daily presence, as he explains in his statements. Even before the conversation formally began, my carefully prepared questions were already being answered. What I had written as my final question on paper seemed to unfold in the very first moments of our encounter, without me needing to ask it. On my way, I was curious, within the framework of the Festival des Musiciens du Monde’s theme, about what stories The Secret Trio hopes to tell through this musical dialogue, and what this exchange between cultures says to the world today. As a message, Ara Dinkjian says that sincerity and the strength of friendship and human connection are answers to many of the challenges facing the world today. These values naturally live and thrive within their music, inseparable from life, emerging directly from stories of shared time and the experience of meaningful togetherness.

His previous works have reached deeply across cultures and generations through collaborations with artists and friends such as Onno Tunç and Arto Tunçboyacıyan, notably within Night Ark—an influential ensemble formed in the early 1980s—where his music contributed to a new sound shaped by jazz-inflected and contemporary musical languages, while both Onno Tunç and Arto Tunçboyacıyan were also key figures in shaping modern Turkish music through their collaborations with leading Turkish musicians throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

His compositions have also found life through iconic interpretations by Sezen Aksu, as well as through master interpreters in Türkiye and Greece, such as Eleftheria Arvanitaki, whose performances of “Ta Kormia Kai Ta Machairia” (ΤαΚορμιά Και Τα Μαχαίρια, 1991) and “Dinata Dinata” (Δυνατά Δυνατά) helped carry his music into wider cultural spaces, particularly around the Athens 2004 Olympic Games. This same sense of continuity between creation and interpretation was present throughout the evening, echoing the shared musical language that Ara Dinkjian described in our conversation—one rooted in sincerity, friendship, and lived experience.

The audience’s insistent applause had called them back to the stage. The encore opened with “Ağladıkça,” known to us through Sezen Aksu’s interpretation and associated with Ahmet Kaya’s repertoire, before unfolding into the iconic “Homecoming.” A powerful finale of two pieces followed, as the audience erupted in jubilation and the final note dissolved into the space.

We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to the Centre des Musiciens du Monde and The Secret Trio for their warm welcome and for making this article possible.