About the album
Project Earth: The Blue Chapter
The first in the Iris Trio‘s epic multi-chapter Project Earth series, The Blue Chapter features original compositions by Juno Award-winning composer and jazz pianist Florian Hoefner, with original poetry written and recited by Griffin Prize-winning poet Don McKay. The result is the collision of the Iris Trio’s virtuosity and “exquisite balance of sound” (Augsburger Allgemeine) with a remarkable new body of spellbinding chamber music, uniting inspiration from classic, jazz, and folk genres.
The Blue Chapter of Project Earth is the trio’s second album. Their debut, Homage and Inspiration, was released in 2020 to international critical acclaim (“a stunning recording,” Fanfare, USA; “absolutely breathtaking,” The WholeNote, Canada; “joy and risk without restraint,” Ritmo Magazine, Spain) and named by the CBC as one of “10 upcoming Canadian classical albums to get excited about.” With Project Earth, clarinetist Christine Carter says, the ensemble “strives to illuminate the impact of human behaviour on the environment, addressing issues of climate change, pollution, habitat degradation, and biodiversity loss, while also giving centre stage to the immense beauty and wonder found in nature.” The three original works comprising the album serve this mandate with artful, innovative creations that are in turns celebratory and elegiac.
Iris Trio
Christine Carter – clarinet
Zoë Martin-Doike – viola
Anna Petrova – piano