Silkroad, formerly the Silk Road Project, Inc., is a not-for-profit organization, initiated by the cellist

Yo-Yo Ma Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is a French-born American Cello, cellist. Born to Chinese people, Chinese parents in Paris, he was regarded as a child prodigy there and began to study the cello with his father at age four. At the age of seven, ...

in 1998, promoting collaboration among artists and institutions, promoting multicultural artistic exchange, and studying the ebb and flow of ideas. The project was first inspired by the cultural traditions of the historical Eurasian

Silk Road The Silk Road was a network of Asian trade routes active from the second century BCE until the mid-15th century. Spanning over , it played a central role in facilitating economic, cultural, political, and religious interactions between the ...

trade routes and now encompasses a number of artistic, cultural and educational programs focused on connecting people and ideas from around the world. It has been described as an "arts and educational organization that connects musicians, composers, artists and audiences around the world" and "an initiative to promote multicultural artistic collaboration." In July 2020, Rhiannon Giddens took over from Yo-Yo Ma as Artistic Director.

Recent events

In 2009, Silkroad began an educational pilot program for middle-school students in New York City public schools. The Silk Road Connect program focuses on passion-driven education through arts integration and is being developed with help from education experts at the

Harvard Graduate School of Education The Harvard Graduate School of Education (HGSE) is the education school of Harvard University, a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1920, it was the first school to grant the EdD degree and the first ...

. In July 2012, Silkroad and Harvard Graduate School of Education presented "The Arts and Passion-Driven Learning," an arts education institute that modeled the Silk Road Connect arts integration approach. The program has continued each year since. In celebration of its 10th anniversary, Silkroad presented performances and programs by the Silk Road Ensemble in North America, Asia and Europe from 2008 to 2010. Its anniversary season began with the Silk Road Ensemble's performance with Yo-Yo Ma of the

United Nations Day United Nations Day is an annual commemorative day, reflecting the official creation of the United Nations on 24 October 1945. In 1947, the United Nations General Assembly declared 24 October, the anniversary of the Charter of the United Nations, ...

Concert in October 2008. Tenth-anniversary activities also included a North American concert tour by the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma in March 2009, which featured the North American premiere of ''Layla and Majnun'', a chamber arrangement for the Silk Road Ensemble of a traditional Azerbaijani opera. The organization has published a book, ''Along the Silk Road'', and commissioned more than 70 new chamber music compositions. Silkroad has also created educational materials entitled "Silk Road Encounters" and has partnered with the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE) to produce ''Along the Silk Road'', a curriculum for students in grades six-10, and ''The Road to Beijing'', a documentary made available with related lessons about

Beijing Beijing, Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Peking, is the capital city of China. With more than 22 million residents, it is the world's List of national capitals by population, most populous national capital city as well as ...

in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.

Partnerships

Silkroad is affiliated with

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

; the organization moved its offices to the Harvard campus in Boston, Massachusetts, in July 2010 at the outset of a renewed five-year affiliation with the University, designed to enable new artistic and cultural opportunities at Harvard and in surrounding communities. Silkroad has been affiliated with both

and the

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase th ...

in the USA, where the Silk Road Ensemble engaged with faculty and students in annual residencies. Silkroad's partnership with the Rhode Island School of Design took place from 2005 through 2010. As part of Silkroad programming, the Silk Road Ensemble has also been involved in short-term residencies at Museum Rietberg in Zurich, Switzerland; The Art Institute of Chicago;

University of California, Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. Tracing its roots back to 1891 as an ...

; Rubin Museum of Art in New York City;

Nara National Museum The is one of the pre-eminent national art museums in Japan. Introduction The Nara National Museum is located in Nara, which was the capital of Japan from 710 to 784. Katayama Tōkuma (1854–1917) designed the original building, which is a rep ...

in Nara, Japan; the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts; and the

Aga Khan Museum The Aga Khan Museum is a museum of Islamic art located at 77 Wynford Drive in the North York district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The museum is dedicated to Islamic art and objects, and it houses approximately 1,200 rare objects assembled by Sh ...

in Toronto.

''The Music of Strangers''

''The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble'' is a

documentary film A documentary film (often described simply as a documentary) is a nonfiction Film, motion picture intended to "document reality, primarily for instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". The American author and ...

about Silkroad directed by

Morgan Neville Morgan Neville (born October 10, 1967) is an American filmmaker. His acclaimed film ''20 Feet from Stardom'' won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2014 as well as a Grammy Award for Best Music Film. His documentary '' Best of Ene ...

. The film was released in U.S. theaters starting in June 2016. The Orchard has acquired all worldwide rights to the film with the exception of U.S. domestic television rights, which

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American pay television service, which is the flagship property of namesake parent-subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is based a ...

has acquired. Reviews of the documentary included:

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

85%;

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

3/4; and, 7/10

IMDb IMDb, historically known as the Internet Movie Database, is an online database of information related to films, television series, podcasts, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and biograp ...

The Silk Road Ensemble

The Silk Road Ensemble is a

musical collective Musical collective is a phrase used to describe a Musical ensemble, group of musicians in which membership is flexible and creative control is shared.Liisa Ladouceur"Collective Souls" ''This Magazine'', November/December 2004. The concept is dist ...

and a part of Silkroad. The ensemble is not a fixed group of musicians, but rather a loose collective of as many as 59 musicians, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers from Eurasian cultures. The Ensemble has regularly commissioned new works from across a broad musical spectrum, including works by Zhao Jiping and Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky, and is known for its series of interdisciplinary festivals and residencies presented in North America, Europe, and Asia. They have performed in many locations along the historic Silk Road, including Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, India, the Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan. The Ensemble uses various instruments from the Silk Road region, including a

pipa The pipa, pípá, or p'i-p'a () is a traditional Chinese musical instrument belonging to the plucked category of instruments. Sometimes called the "Chinese lute", the instrument has a pear-shaped wooden body with a varying number of frets rangi ...

, a Chinese short-necked plucked lute; a

duduk The duduk ( ; ) or tsiranapogh (, meaning "apricot-made wind instrument"), is a double reed woodwind instrument made of apricot wood originating from Armenia. Variations of the Armenian duduk appear throughout the Caucasus, the Balkans, and the ...

, an Armenian double reed woodwind; a

Shakuhachi A is a Japanese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo. The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the .

, a Japanese bamboo flute; and a

morin khuur The ''morin khuur'' (), also known as the horsehead fiddle, is a traditional Mongolian bowed stringed instrument. It is one of the most important musical instruments of the Mongol people, and is considered a symbol of the nation of Mongolia. ...

, a Mongolian horse head fiddle; among many others.

Discography

The Silk Road Ensemble has recorded ten CDs. The group's 2009 CD ''Off the Map'' was nominated in the Best Classical Crossover Album category at the 53rd Grammy Awards in 2011. Their 2016 CD ''Sing Me Home'' won Best World Music Album at the

59th Grammy Awards The 59th Annual Grammy Awards ceremony was held on February 12, 2017. The CBS network broadcast the show live from the Staples Center in Los Angeles. The ceremony recognized the best recordings, compositions, and artists of the eligibility yea ...

in 2017. * 2001 - ''Silk Road Journey: When Strangers Meet'' * 2005 - ''Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon'' (released earlier in

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

in 2004 titled ''Enchantment'') * 2007 - '' New Impossibilities'' * 2008 - ''Traditions and Transformations: Sounds of Silk Road Chicago'' * 2009 - ''Off the Map'' * 2013 - ''A Playlist Without Borders'' * 2016 - ''Sing Me Home'' * 2017 - ''The Vietnam War: A Film By Ken Burns & Lynn Novick oundtrack' * 2020 - ''Falling Out of Time'' * 2024 - ''American Railroad''

Members

In addition to Ma, performing members of the ensemble include: *Siamak Aghaei - santur/composer *Edward Arron -

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

* Kinan Azmeh -

clarinet The clarinet is a Single-reed instrument, single-reed musical instrument in the woodwind family, with a nearly cylindrical bore (wind instruments), bore and a flared bell. Clarinets comprise a Family (musical instruments), family of instrume ...

*Jeffrey Beecher -

double bass The double bass (), also known as the upright bass, the acoustic bass, the bull fiddle, or simply the bass, is the largest and lowest-pitched string instrument, chordophone in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding rare additions ...

* Mike Block -

*Nicholas Cords -

viola The viola ( , () ) is a string instrument of the violin family, and is usually bowed when played. Violas are slightly larger than violins, and have a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of the ...

* Gevorg Dabaghyan -

* Sandeep Das -

tabla A ''tabla'' is a pair of hand drums from the Indian subcontinent. Since the 18th century, it has been the principal percussion instrument in Hindustani classical music, where it may be played solo, as an accompaniment with other instruments a ...

/composer * Joel Fan -

piano A piano is a keyboard instrument that produces sound when its keys are depressed, activating an Action (music), action mechanism where hammers strike String (music), strings. Modern pianos have a row of 88 black and white keys, tuned to a c ...

*Haruka Fujii -

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

*Jonathan Gandelsman -

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

* Joseph Gramley -

/composer *Ben Haggarty - storyteller *He Cui - sheng *Hu Jianbing - sheng, bawu *Rauf Islamov -

kamancheh The kamancheh (also kamānche or kamāncha) (, , , ) is an Iranian bowed string instrument used in Persian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, Kurdish, Georgian, Turkmen, and Uzbek music with slight variations in the structure of the instrument. Th ...

*Colin Jacobsen -

/composer *Siamak Jahangiry - ney * Kayhan Kalhor -

/composer * Ganbaatar Khongorzul - urtiin duu ( long song) *Dong-Won Kim - janggo, vocals/composer *Ji Hyun Kim - kayagum, vocals *You-Young Kim -

*Li Hui -

*Liu Lin - sanxian *Ali Asgar Mammadov -

tar Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black b ...

*Max Mandel -

*Gulia Mashurova -

harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orchestras or ...

*Kevork Mourad - visual artist * Cristina Pato - Galician bagpipe /composer * Alim Qasimov -

mugham Mugham () or Mughamat () is one of the many classical compositions from Azerbaijan, contrasting with tasnif and ashik. It is an art form that weds classical poetry and musical improvisation in specific local modes. Mugham is a modal system. ...

vocals * Farghana Qasimova -

vocals * Bassam Saba - oud, ney/composer *Shane Shanahan -

/composer *Mark Suter -

/composer *Kojiro Umezaki -

shakuhachi A is a Japanese longitudinal, end-blown flute that is made of bamboo. The bamboo end-blown flute now known as the was developed in Japan in the 16th century and is called the .

/composer * Wu Man -

*Wu Tong - sheng, bawu/composer *Betti Xiang -

erhu The (; ) is a Chinese two-stringed bowed musical instrument, more specifically a spike fiddle, that is sometimes known in the Western world as the ''Chinese violin'' or a ''Chinese two-stringed fiddle''. It is used as a solo instrument as ...

*Yang Wei -

*DaXun Zhang -

*Reylon Yount - yangqin *Jason Duckles - Cello Silk Road Ensemble composers and arrangers include: *

Rabih Abou-Khalil Rabih Abou-Khalil (, born August 17, 1957) is an oud player and composer born in Lebanon, who combines elements of Arabic music with jazz, classical music, and other styles. He grew up in Beirut and moved to Munich, Germany, during the Lebanese ...

* Christopher Adler *

Franghiz Ali-Zadeh Franghiz Ali Aga Kïzï Ali-Zadeh (born 28 May 1947) is an Azerbaijani composer and pianist of contemporary classical music, chairperson of the Composers Union of Azerbaijan. Her music synthesizes Western classical modernist techniques with the ...

*Jia Daqun * Gabriela Lena Frank *

Osvaldo Golijov Osvaldo Noé Golijov (; born December 5, 1960) is an Argentine composer of classical music and music professor, known for his vocal and orchestral work. Biography Osvaldo Golijov was born in and raised in La Plata, Argentina, to a Jewish family ...

*Jeeyoung Kim * Glenn Kotche * Angel Lam *Alisher Latif-Zadeh *Ljova ( Lev Zhurbin) *Nurlanbek Nyshanov * Sangidorjiin Sansargereltekh * Vache Sharafyan * Byambasuren Sharav * Giovanni Sollima *Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky * Zhao Jiping *Zhao Lin * Evan ZiporynSilk Road Ensemble list
— The Silk Road Project

Silk Road Chicago

Silk Road Chicago was a citywide celebration, from June 2006 to June 2007, with special events, performances, and exhibitions that explored cross-cultural discovery and celebrated the artistic legacy of the historic Silk Road. Silk Road Chicago was a partnership among Silkroad, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Chicago Office of Tourism,

Chicago Symphony Orchestra The Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO) is an American symphony orchestra based in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by Theodore Thomas in 1891, the ensemble has been based in the Symphony Center since 1904 and plays a summer season at the Ravinia F ...

, and The Art Institute of Chicago.

References

External links

SilkroadInstruments from the Silk RoadArtists associated with the Silk Road EnsembleSilk Road Chicago
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20080509054452/http://weekendamerica.publicradio.org/display/web/2007/08/04/beyond_the_silk_road_with_yoyo_ma/ Interview with Yo-Yo Ma about the Silk Road Project- Weekend America {{Authority control Musical groups established in 1998 Musical collectives Chamber music groups Grammy Award winners Yo-Yo Ma