The Silk Road Ensemble is a group of professional musicians who get to gather in order to perform, share, and educate people about different musical traditions that they might otherwise be unaware of. Founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, the ensemble’s main focuses are on performance and education, with a 3rd focus on business education and cultural entrepreneurship.
Members of the ensemble get together and share their own favorite musical traditions with each other, working on integrating each tradition together in order to shrink down the cultural barriers present in music today.
The first example here is a clip of the performance of a song off of the band’s newest album “Sing Me Home”. “St. James Infirmary” is a classic New Orleans blues tune that the ensemble has added some eastern instruments and approaches to.
This second example is a much more interesting matchup of cultures (In my opinion). This mixes the instrumentation (With a few western instruments thrown in) of traditional Arabic music with the improvisation of jazz music and techniques from European classical music.
This video is about the Pipa and one of the most recognized and virtuosity Pipa players in the world, Wu Man. I’ve included this not only to show the emphasis that the ensemble places on Chinese and other eastern styles, but also to show the caliber of the musicians who participate in the ensemble.
This is a video detailing the Global Musicians Workshop that the ensemble put on a few years ago. Members of silk road and staff at the school put on small clinics about different musical styles and performed on a large multi-cultural concert.
This final video outlines the program’s focus on Cultural Entrepreneurship. This is a term that is used to describe the ability of an artist to be self sustaining while also enriching the world with their culture.
Project Sources:
Silkroadproject.org
Cuno, J., & Ma, Y. (2007). The Silk Road and beyond: A Conversation with James Cuno and Yo-Yo Ma. Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 33(1), 20-29. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205543
Johnson, M., & Ma, Y. (2006). An Interview with Yo-Yo Ma. World Literature Today, 80(4), 6-8. doi:1. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40159123 doi:1
Johnson, Michelle, and Yo-Yo Ma. “An Interview with Yo-Yo Ma.” World Literature Today, vol. 80, no. 4, 2006, pp. 6–8. www.jstor.org/stable/40159123.
I really think this project is awesome. I especially like when they incorporate the tabla into it in such a fast paced percussion way. I wish we could get a clinic at our school.
ReplyDeleteI also think that the general goal of this ensemble is really neat. I feel like this semester has kind of been a Silk Road of our own as far as learning about traditions and musical values that we would have not experienced otherwise.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Vinny's comment I wish we could get a clinic at UNG that would be so cool. This idea is super interesting and I think it's awesome they want to teach people about other cultures' music.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great project. To have the ability to save whole cultures music is great. To make sure that there music gets pass on is one of many reasons I hope the Silk Road project never stops.
ReplyDeleteThis is such a cool idea! I really like that they're making people aware to other musical ideas. It seems though that they're taking foreign instruments to play western music. I'd like to see Yoyo Ma play a raga on the cello or something to that nature. Actually expand musical ideas and not just instruments and techniques.
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