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Yo-Yo Ma & Silk Road Ensemble

New Impossibilities

Sony Classical
Release Date: July 31, 2007

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What is Silkroad?
SILKROAD | What does it mean to be fearlessly human?
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1 Arabian Waltz  
2 Night Of the Flying Horses  
3 Galloping Horses  
4 Song Of Eight Unruly Tipsy Poets  
5 Shristi  
6 The Silent City  
7 Ambush from Ten Sides  
8 Vocussion  
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New Impossibilities, a new live recording by Sony Classical featuring multiple-Grammy-Award-winning cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the Silk Road Ensemble, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and conductor Miguel Harth-Bedoya, will be released on July 31. The recording is the result of "Silk Road Chicago," the first city-wide year-long residency spearheaded by the Silk Road Project, the organization founded by Ma as a catalyst for promoting innovation and learning through cross-cultural and interdisciplinary partnerships.

  • The Silkroad Ensemble imagines the sound of a country under construction / Washington Post interview w/Rhiannon Giddens
    Posted At: November 8, 2023
    The Silkroad Ensemble, led by Giddens, is bringing life to her “American Railroad” project. The Washington Post's Michael Andor Brodeur writes….On Friday, Silkroad Ensemble released "Phoenix Rising," a four-song EP recorded live at Seiji Ozawa Hall at Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass. The release offers not only an abridged document of the group's 2022 tour of the same name, but also a proper reintroduction o...

  • Rhiannon Giddens sets up a musical whirlwind for Bay Area audiences / San Francisco Chronicle
    Posted At: November 2, 2023
    San Francisco Chronicle's Joshua Kosman writes….The pace and scope of Rhiannon Giddens’ artistic activity can seem hard to fathom until you get her into conversation. Then the whirlwind that’s about to hit the Bay Area begins to make a little more sense.Giddens is a fast talker, her remarks packed with ideas and inventions and probing theories that come tumbling forth as quickly as she can formulate them. T...

  • Silkroad announces debut concert tour of 'American Railroad' / World Music Central
    Posted At: September 27, 2023
    World Music Central writes…..Silkroad, led by Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens, is launching its American Railroad initiative in November 2023. It includes a U.S. concert tour with educational activities, focusing on the cultural history of railroads. The tour features new compositions and reinterpretations by various artists. The project sheds light on the often-overlooked contributions of diverse commun...

  • Hosted by Silk Road, artists from Sierra Leone's Telem Freetown selected for Global Musician Workshop / Music In Africa
    Posted At: June 20, 2023
    Sierra Leonean musicians Iyabode, Solos Beat and Fretwalker, as well as Sierra Leone-based American singer Kate Krontiris, have been accepted into the Global Musician Workshop in the US from 6 to 12 August.The selected musicians represent the Telem Freetown Uncommon Sounds initiative that aims to foster an open and experimental creative community in Freetown.Music In Africa's Gabriel Myers Hansen writes….Ho...

  • Silk Road Ensemble's Sandeep Das and Mike Block set to perform at Cleveland Institute of Music / cleveland.com
    Posted At: January 23, 2023
    The cross-genre duo of tabla player Sandeep Das, left, and cellist Mike Block will perform in a guest artist recital at 7:30 p.m. Feb. 3 at the Cleveland Institute of Music’s Mixon Hall. cleveland.com - Ed Wittenberg writes….Mike Block and Sandeep Das come from very different musical backgrounds.What they have in common is a passion for cross-cultural collaboration as members of world-famous cellist Yo...

  • Johnny Gandelsman's 'This Is America' anthology. A turbulenent time-capsule of 2020 / BBC Music Magazine
    Posted At: August 11, 2022
    This is America Works by Clarice Assad, Terry Riley, Micaela Tobin et al Johnny Gandelsman (violin)BBC Music Magazine's Claire Jackson writes…..It’s easy to forget the turbulence of 2020 – particularly when one set of problems has been replaced with another. This Is America – an anthology of 24 works commissioned and performed by Johnny Gandelsman – is a time-capsule of that period. Unlike other lockdown pr...

  • Rhiannon Giddens excels in problematic Gershwin masterpiece at Greensboro's Tanger Center / YES WEEKLY
    Posted At: January 26, 2022
    YES WEEKLY's Ian McDowell writes…..The Greensboro Opera production of Porgy and Bess that ended its brief run at the Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts on Sunday may seem an odd fit for Greensboro-born polymath Rhiannon Giddens. Not that Giddens doesn’t know opera. Before she became a Grammy and MacArthur-winning folk singer and multi-instrumentalist (not to mention writer, historian, and ethnomus...

  • Mike Block releases 'When The Birds Sing Along In The Morning' featuring; Yo-Yo Ma / BroadwayWorld
    Posted At: January 21, 2022
    BroadwayWorld's Michael Major writes…..Fresh off the release of his solo cello improvisational album, Planispheres, last month, the ever prolific Mike Block, has released a new single, "When The Birds Sing Along In The Morning" feat. Yo-Yo Ma, to a new record, Machines That Fly, for a March 4 release via Bright Shiny Things. Machines That Fly features three new songs, plus seven solo cello reinterpretations...

  • Rhiannon Gidden's first Silk Road concert as AD eased the loss of the last two years / 90.9WBUR
    Posted At: December 14, 2021

    WBUR's Anri Wheeler writes....Since the start of the pandemic, I have let subscriptions to the A.R.T., Celebrity Series, and Broadway in Boston go unrenewed. As much as I have missed shows and readings and concerts, they have not seemed worth the risk.   When I walked by the A.R.T. and saw Rhiannon Gidden's photo looking out at me from an enormous orange poster, my body instinctively...

  • Rhiannon Giddens new opera, 'Omar,' is bound for San Francisco / San Francisco Chronicle
    Posted At: November 17, 2021

    The San Francisco Chronicle's Joshua Kosman writes...."Omar," a new operatic collaboration by Grammy Award-winning musician Rhiannon Giddens and composer Michael Abels, is scheduled for a world premiere in May at the Spoleto Festival USA in Charleston, S.C, after which the piece will be performed by a consortium of co-commissioning companies, including the San Francisco Opera. A spokesperson for ...

  • Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens Announces a New Era for Silkroad / WorldMusicCentral.org
    Posted At: December 16, 2020

    Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens has announced four new artistic world music and contemporary music projects that pair with community outreach and educational programs. Home to a concert series, educational programming, children's book, musical commissions, and media collaborations, The American Silkroad will shine a light on American music in its truest form: a melting pot of cross-cultural collaborat...

  • Rhiannon Giddens aims at 1800s America in her Silkroad plans / The New York Times
    Posted At: November 13, 2020

    Under its new artistic director, the cross-cultural music organization will start a project devoted to the transcontinental railroad. Rhiannon Giddens's first major undertaking as Silkroad artistic director will be The American Silkroad, a multiyear project focused on the construction of the transcontinental railroad in the 19th century. It was initially surprising news when it was announced in ...

  • Silkroad names Rhiannon Giddens as new artistic director / THE UNDEFEATED
    Posted At: July 30, 2020

    Folk artist, banjo evangelist, Grammy winner and MacArthur genius grant recipient Rhiannon Giddens will be the new artistic director of Silkroad. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma founded the artistic organization in 1998 to foster multicultural connection and collaboration among music artists across the world, sort of like an ongoing United Nations jam session. Silkroad announced the decision Tuesday morning. Giddens' f...

  • Johnny Gandelsman explores Bach Cello Suites at 'Santa Ynez Valley Concert Series' / NOOZHAWK
    Posted At: February 25, 2020

    The Santa Ynez Valley Concert Series will present Grammy Award-winning violinist and producer Johnny Gandelsman in A Violinist Explores Bach's Cello Suites, 7 p.m. Friday, March 20, at St. Mark's-in-the-Valley, 2901 Nojoqui Ave., Los Olivos. Gandelsman will perform as part of the 40th annual Santa Ynez Valley Concert Series. Since its inception by founder Rose Knoles in 1981, the concert series has b...

  • Silkroad Ensemble performs Kinan Azmeh's 'Wedding' at Tanglewood / theStrad
    Posted At: January 8, 2020

    Cellist Yo-Yo Ma came up with the idea of Silkroad, formerly named the Silk Road Project, in 1998, inspired by the historical Silk Road trading route that linked China with the West. The Silkroad Ensemble launched in 2000, comprising musicians from countries along this route. ‘We started as a group of musicians getting together and seeing what might happen when strangers meet,' Ma said. To mark...

  • Watch Silkroad's Haruka Fujii and Kaoru Watanabev with dueling taiko drums
    Posted At: May 19, 2019

    Haruka Fujii and Kaoru Watanabe prepare to open Pauchi Saski's "Elektra" with dueling taiko drums. "Elektra" is one of five pieces that comprise "Heroes Take Their Stands," a new multi-media work from the Silkroad Ensemble about what it means to be fearlessly human. Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998 as a reminder that even as rapid globalization resulted in division, it brought extraordinary po...

  • Sandeep Das to receive 2019 Guggenheim fellowship / MIG
    Posted At: April 17, 2019

    The Guggenheim fellowship announced its fellows for this year on April 9, 2019 and two Indian-Americans have made it to the list. Tabla maestro Sandeep Das and chemistry professor Dr Neal K. Devaraj have been recognised for their exceptional work in the field of art and science. The fellowship is awarded by John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation for further development of artists and scholars who have...

  • The Cristina Pato Quartet, set for Vancouver's Chan Centre / The Georgia Straight
    Posted At: March 28, 2019

    Having just returned from New Zealand-and having been in transit from Auckland to the WOMAD festival in New Plymouth on the day the Christchurch massacre happened-Cristina Pato is understandably reluctant to discuss how it felt to perform in the aftermath of tragedy. But as a member of the Silkroad Ensemble, an intercultural chamber orchestra formed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, she's not at all hesitant ...

  • SilkRoad Ensemble set for UNCW's Kenan Auditorium / StarNewsOnline
    Posted At: March 22, 2019

    Seven-members from the The Grammy-winning Silkroad Ensemble from Boston founded by the famed cellist travels between the music of Europe and the East on March 27 at UNCW's Kenan Auditorium. It is the essence of romantic adventure. Caravans crossing thousands of miles of high desert, sometimes within sight of heaven-stretched mountains, following the headwaters of great rivers, skirting China's Great Wall...

  • Kayhan Kalhour set to headline 'International Music Festival' / San Antonio Magazine Q&A
    Posted At: March 20, 2019

    Kayhan Kalhour knows life will always involve the mundane-bills, dishes, work-which is why the Grammy Award–nominated musician says music and culture are so crucial. "Some of us will be professional musicians and some will be professional listeners, but music is so important in this world that we live in," says Kalhour, who will perform on Friday, March 22, as part of Musical Bridges Around the Wor...

  • Silkroad Ensemble celebrates diversity in Auckland / RADIO 13
    Posted At: March 15, 2019

    It was a very fine musical fusion from Silkroad Ensemble at the Auckland Town Hall as part of the Auckland Arts Festival 2019 last Thursday night. Conceived by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma almost twenty years ago to be a musical expression of working together in the face of globalisation, the Ensemble literally embodies diversity. In addition to performing, the group also mentor and train musicians and teachers ...

  • Watch Silk Road collaborate
    Posted At: March 15, 2019

    Silkroad's mission has always been about creating music that engages difference. How do we celebrate differences among us but not let those differences divide us? How do you co-create, how do you co-collaborate? What does it mean to really hear someone? The idea of radical cultural collaboration...not only are you willing to share, but willing to hear what someone else's deep thoughts about somet...

  • Silkroad Ensemble fuses musical culture at QPAC / ArtsHub review
    Posted At: March 9, 2019

    Founded 20 years ago by acclaimed cellist, Yo-Yo Ma. Conceived as a means by which musicians from all genres and backgrounds could work together in a productive cultural collaboration, Silkroad Ensemble comprises an ever-evolving group of amazing musicians. Named after the route of the ancient Silk Road, which connected east and west, the vision of the Ensembleisto facilitate an exchange of ide...

  • Silk Road joins UD-Korbel School and Newman Center for concert and conversation on the intersection of cultural diplomacy
    Posted At: February 8, 2019

    Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998 as a reminder that even as rapid globalization resulted in division, it brought extraordinary possibilities for working together. Seeking to understand this dynamic, he began to learn about the historical Silk Road, recognizing in it a model for productive cultural collaboration, for the exchange of ideas and tradition alongside commerce and innovation. And in a radica...

  • Radio New Zealand pre-views Womad 2019
    Posted At: November 12, 2018

    Radio New Zealand's Episode 110 pre-views just some of the line-up of international and local musicians who will be appearing at Womad on the 15 – 17th March 2019. The program includes music from Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble, along with an interview with Emere Wano, the Event Director and NZ Program Manager talking about her role in Womad and why the Womad festival always makes for a u...

  • WOMADelaide announces 2019 lineup / The Adelaide Review
    Posted At: October 18, 2018

    WOMADelaide 2019 lineup announcement is rich with familiar names and new discoveries. Keen WOMAD watchers might have anticipated the announcement of the Grammy-winning, Yo Yo Ma-founded Silk Road Ensemble, who last month were confirmed to headline the Kiwi WOMAD in Taranaki alongside Kidjo and NZ rapper TEEKS (who will also perform at WOMADelaide 2019). They won't be the only Grammy winners on the lineup...

  • Cristina Pato Quartet & 'The Music of Strangers' documentary will visit Ohio University campus / The Post
    Posted At: September 17, 2018

    An award-winning instrumental group is coming to Ohio University's campus, and to get everyone excited for the performance, a documentary about one of the members will be shown at The Athena Cinema. The Cristina Pato Quartet will visit campus Sept. 24 as part of the Performing Arts and Concert Series. Additionally, a documentary on the Silk Road Ensemble, the group through which Pato first attracted an A...

  • Kayhan Kalhor, recipient of 2018 Isaac Stern Human Spirit Award / FINANCIAL TRIBUNE
    Posted At: September 1, 2018

    The Shanghai Isaac Stern International Violin Competition has announced Iranian kamancheh virtuoso Kayhan Kalhor as one of the recipients of the 2018 Isaac Stern Human Spirit Award. Kalhor, busy practicing for his concerts, could not attend the award ceremony on Saturday in Shanghai. However, event and conductor Michael Stern, son of Isaac Stern, received the award on his behalf, Honaronline reporte...

  • Melbourne Festival returns this October with its most enthralling program yet / beat
    Posted At: July 26, 2018

    The Melbourne International Arts Festival will decorate Victoria's capital with a host of entrancing theatre, music, dance and art showcases this October, the festival tonight announcing the expansive 2018 program set to take over the city. Highlights include an exclusive set from revered Berlin composer Nils Frahm as well as Silkroad Ensemble from the US, performing their dance opera, Layla and Manjun. ...

  • Wu Man stops by the NPR studios to discuss the history of the pipa
    Posted At: May 5, 2018

    Wu Man is recognized as the world's greatest virtuoso on an instrument that is over 2000 years old: the Chinese pipa. Throughout her career, she's brought the pear-shaped, 24-fret instrument into the 21st century by collaborating with world class orchestras like the New York Philharmonic and groups like the Kronos Quartet and Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. "Jump out the box - I always wan...

  • Yo-Yo Ma brings along a few friends from around the globe for Florida State's 'Opening Nights' / Tallahassee Democrat
    Posted At: April 12, 2018

    The last time world-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma, center, was at Opening Nights for a solo show, he played the Bach Cello Suites so beautifully they sounded the way Bach probably heard them in his head when they were written. This time around, when he returns to Opening Nights on Tuesday night at Florida State University's Ruby Diamond Concert Hall, Ma is bringing along a few friends from around the globe...

  • Holy Cross students become 'guest percussionists' of the Silkroad ensemble / Worcester Telegram
    Posted At: February 19, 2018

    They may not have known it as they walked in and took their seats in Room 481 at O'Kane Hall before the start of the class, but 30 College of the Holy Cross students would become an unofficial percussion orchestra by the time the session's 75 minutes were up. Actually, you could have called the student percussionists "guest" members of the Silkroad Ensemble, the New York-based musical collective that was...

  • Yo-Yo Ma hands over artistic direction of Silkroad
    Posted At: October 24, 2017

    A letter from Yo-Yo Ma, Dear Friends,  Silkroad turns twenty next year. Like a teenager approaching adulthood, we are exploring our purpose in the world. For us, this means thinking about how to share what we have learned to build a more hopeful future. One thing we have discovered is the joy and significance of working as an ensemble, and at this turning point, we are formalizing a new appr...

  • Behind the music in 'Vietnam War' documentary / IdeaStream: Cleveland
    Posted At: September 11, 2017

    Music can help express emotions that aren't so easily put to words, and songs from of the Vietnam War era continue to help people identify with feelings from that time period. Songs like John Lennon's "Give Peace a Chance" and the Rolling Stones "Street Fighting Man" helped filmmakers Ken Burns and Lynn Novick with "The Vietnam War," a series which premieres on PBS WVIZ on Sunday. "There are 120 reco...

  • Silk Road Ensemble provides open workshop at Ft. Collins - Music District / Rocky Mountain Collegian
    Posted At: June 22, 2017

    Members of Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble provided an open workshop at The Music District in Fort Collins on Tuesday. The musicians were cellist Mike Block, percussionist Shane Shanahan and flutist Kaoru Watanabe. The workshop was part of the Silk Road Ensemble's circuit in Colorado. The circuit began Monday at New Belgium with a screening of Yo-Yo Ma's documentary "The Music of Strangers" and...

  • Silk Road Ensemble. A fitting finale for Abu Dhabi Festival / The National
    Posted At: April 2, 2017

    "Falling in love is one of the few human rights that no one can take away," says clarinettist Kinan Azmeh from the stage at Emirates Palace, dedicating the Silk Road Ensemble's final piece to his fellow Syrians who have "managed to fall in love in the past six years". With that, the 13 musicians launch into Wedding, a joyous group extrapolation of the traditional folk melodies one might still hear at a v...
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