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Silkroad (arts organization)

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Silk Road Project, Inc. is a not-for-profit organization, initiated by acclaimed cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, promoting collaboration among artists and institutions, promoting multicultural artistic exchange, and studying the ebb and flow of ideas among different cultures along the Silk Road. The Project encompasses a number of artistic, cultural and educational programs.[1] It has been described as an "arts and educational organization that connects musicians, composers, artists and audiences around the world"[2] and "an initiative to promote multicultural artistic collaboration."[3]

In celebration of its 10th anniversary, the Silk Road Project is scheduled to present performances and programs by the Silk Road Ensemble in North America, Asia and Europe from 2008 to 2010. The Project is also involved in a two-year educational pilot program for middle-school students in New York City public schools.[4] Its anniversary season began with the Silk Road Ensemble's performance with Yo-Yo Ma of the United Nations Day Concert in October 2008.[5] Tenth-anniversary activities have 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. [6]

The organization has published a book, Along the Silk Road, and commissioned more than 60 new chamber music compositions.[7] The Silk Road Project 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,[8] and The Road to Beijing, a documentary made available with related lessons about Beijing in advance of the 2008 Summer Olympic Games.[9] As of December 2008, the Silk Road Ensemble has recorded five CDs.

The Silk Road Project is affiliated with Rhode Island School of Design and Harvard University, where the Silk Road Ensemble engages with faculty and students in annual residencies.[10] As part of Silk Road Project 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[11]; Rubin Museum of Art in New York City; Nara National Museum in Nara, Japan; and the Peabody Essex Museum[12] in Salem, Massachusetts.

At its height from the second century BCE until the 14th century, the Silk Road was a vast network of trade routes that connected China to the Mediterranean through Greater Iran. For centuries ideas, objects, and people traveled along the Silk Road, making it one of the most fluid and broad arenas of exchange the world has known and a major conduit of culture and civilization. The name Silk Road Project serves as a metaphor of the cultural exchange of ideas envisioned by the project.

The Silk Road Ensemble

Silk Road Journeys: Beyond the Horizon

The Silk Road Ensemble is a musical collective and a part of the Silk Road Project. The ensemble is not a fixed group of musicians, but rather a loose collective of as many as 60 musicians, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers from various Eurasian cultures interested in maintaining the authenticity of their own cultural heritage and, at the same time, exchanging ideas across ostensibly dissimilar 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, a Chinese short-necked plucked lute; a duduk, an Armenian double reed woodwind; a Shakuhachi, a Japanese bamboo flute; and a morin khuur, a Mongolian horse head fiddle; among many others.

In addition to Ma, performing members of the ensemble include:

Silk Road Ensemble composers and arrangers include:

Silk Road Chicago

Silk Road Chicago was a yearlong, 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 the Silk Road Project, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Chicago Office of Tourism, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and The Art Institute of Chicago.

The collaboration was initiated by Yo-Yo Ma, who dreamed of bringing the historic Silk Road and the ideas it represents to life in one of the most diverse cities in the world. With this initiative, Chicago became the first city in the world to collaborate on a yearlong partnership with Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Project.

References

  1. ^ Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Project — article published in The World & I
  2. ^ Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble Return to Japan — World Music Central, February 15, 2008.
  3. ^ Follow the mellow Silk Road with Yo-Yo and his cello — The Irish Independent, August 23, 2008.
  4. ^ Chancellor and Yo-Yo Ma Launch Partnership to Enrich Middle School Instruction — New York City Department of Education press release
  5. ^ Oestreich, James. Silk Road Project Turns 10 — The New York Times, October 26, 2008.
  6. ^ For the love of Layla: Yo-Yo Ma's Ensemble creates a version of Layla and Majnun — [The New York Times]], February 27, 2009.
  7. ^ Commissioned Works — The Silk Road Project
  8. ^ New Curriculum Brings Cultural Exchange to Chicago Classrooms — Silk Road Project Newsletter, Summer 2007.
  9. ^ Program packages primer on Beijing in time for Games — Stanford News Service, July 9, 2008.
  10. ^ Silk Road Project, RISD and Harvard announce educational collaborations — press release
  11. ^ Exploring the Silk Road: History Cultural and Social Exchange — Silk Road Ensemble at UCSB residency brochure
  12. ^ Creative Exchanges: Sights and Sounds of the Silk Road — PEM residency archive
  13. ^ Silk Road Ensemble list — The Silk Road Project
  14. ^ Silk Road Ensemble list — The Silk Road Project

See also

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