Béla Fleck, Edmar Castaneda, Antonio Sánchez

“What on earth is this?” — that’s probably what most people think when they read the instrumentation of this trio. Yes, banjo, harp, and drums! Can that possibly work together? Oh yes — relax… it works brilliantly.

The trio, known by the acronym BEATrio, is one of those projects in modern instrumental music that immediately sparks curiosity. In this unusual combination of instruments come together true masters: banjo virtuoso Béla Fleck, harpist Edmar Castañeda, and drummer Antonio Sánchez. As Sánchez himself once put it, BEATrio represents “one of the most unlikely trio configurations anyone has ever seen.” Béla Fleck added that the curiosity and amazement of audiences remind him of the early days of his pioneering band Flecktones, when people also used to ask, “How the hell is that supposed to work?”

For Fleck — who has been pushing the banjo into uncharted territories for decades — the choice of this unconventional lineup is a deliberate one. He always seeks collaborators who can play in ways no one else can. Castañeda and Sánchez fit that description perfectly, and Fleck sees their first joint album, BEATrio, released this year, as only the beginning of a long journey.

BEATrio unites three musical giants, each deeply rooted in different traditions — and each a virtuoso who has redefined the possibilities of his instrument. Across all genres, Béla Fleck is undoubtedly the most renowned, recognized worldwide as the leading and most progressive banjo player of our time. Over the course of his career, he has been nominated for Grammy Awards in more categories than any other artist in history and has won nearly twenty of them. His career is defined by a fearless openness to musical exploration — expanding from traditional bluegrass and folk into jazz, fusion, classical, and world music. From New Grass Revival through his world-famous jazz-rock group Flecktones, duets with Chick Corea, and even his own reimagining of Rhapsody in Blue, Fleck has consistently broken instrumental boundaries.

Harpist and composer Edmar Castañeda, born in Bogotá, Colombia, has done for the harp in Latin music what Fleck has done for the banjo in American music. Castañeda masterfully blends Colombian folk traditions with jazz language, adapting intricate finger techniques to perform jazz melodies and Afro-Cuban rhythms. He is the “glue” of BEATrio — playing bass lines with one hand (routed through a bass amplifier) while harmonizing with the banjo in the other. Watching this duality in action is utterly mesmerizing, as anyone who attended BEATrio’s spring concert in Prague can confirm.

Antonio Sánchez, a five-time Grammy Award winner, hails from Mexico City and has built a reputation as one of the most sought-after drummers in contemporary jazz. His name is most often associated with his long-standing collaboration with guitarist Pat Metheny, with whom he worked for over eighteen years on nine albums. Sánchez gained worldwide recognition beyond the jazz world in 2014, when he composed the groundbreaking all-drums score for Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Oscar-winning film Birdman.

Though these three masters come from the United States, Colombia, and Mexico, and represent distinct musical roots, their shared history of transcending genre boundaries makes them ideal partners for this inspired, virtuosic, and — despite its technical brilliance — wonderfully accessible cross-cultural project.