Yo-Yo Ma and Silk Road Ensemble Connect Cultures Through Music

Rather unusually, all eyes were not on Yo-Yo Ma ’76 last Friday, April 24, as the world-famous cellist drew bow across string during a sold-out concert that evening in Sanders Theatre. Instead, the audience’s attention was focused on the diverse group of individuals and instruments surrounding the 18-time Grammy Award winner. One musician, Nicholas D. Cords, held a viola; a second, Man Wu, strummed a pipa, or Chinese lute; a third, Sandeep Das, beat his hands on the percussive Indian tabla. The musicians were members of the Silk Road Ensemble, a world music group formed by Ma in 2000 with the intent to promote cross-cultural understanding through music.

Friday’s concert set out to achieve that very goal with its eleven pieces—three of which the Silk Road Ensemble had never before performed in public—spanning a wide array of heritages. Despite the group’s Asianic name, the concert engaged with traditions from all around the world, with works rooted in cultures ranging from Syrian to Finnish. “We certainly have melodies that have their basis in the Silk Road,” says Cords, who was involved in programming the concert. “But we also have pieces on the program that are coming from Spain, Americana traditions, Africa—places you wouldn’t necessarily associate with the Silk Road.”

The Silk Road Ensemble has performed and led workshops at Harvard multiple times in the past, an outgrowth of their status as artists in residence since 2005. “Harvard is kind of home to us…and when you’re home, I think you can take certain risks that you might not take other places,” Cords says of the group’s close association with the University.

When asked how Friday’s concert differs from those the Silk Road Ensemble has held at Harvard in the past, Wu points to student involvement. “We normally hold workshops, but this particular Friday’s concert, we actually have students onstage with us,” she says. Undergraduates Shuya Gong ’17, Sumire Hirotsuru ’16, and Martine K. Thomas ’18 appeared onstage with the Silk Road Ensemble for the concert’s opening and concluding pieces, while Reylon A. Yount ’16 played a Chinese ethnic dance with Wu and percussionist Haruka Fujii. Senior George A. Meyer ’15 also premiered an original arrangement of the American traditional tune “Buffalo Skinners” with the group.

“There are a couple of things on this program we’ve never done before,” Cords agrees prior to the concert. “I think it’s going to be fun. But if we crash and burn, we know we’re in a friendly environment…. We’re in a place of learning here.”

Clarinetist Kinan Azmeh performs his self-composed piece “Wedding” with the Silk Road Ensemble, Yo-Yo Ma ‘76, and friends at their concert in Sanders Theater on Friday night. By Megan M. Ross

Last Monday, Das participated in a panel discussion on navigating different cultures with fellow Silk Road Ensemble members Cristina Pato, Joseph Gramley, and Hadi Eldebek, along with Steven Seidel, director of the Arts in Education program at the Graduate School of Education. Das has sat on a number of similar panels in the past while teaching at the Harvard Summer Institute. “Honestly, once I’m done with my part of the teaching—what little I can do…it’s a huge learning experience, where we’re learning from the students and the other faculty,” he says of the panels.

Indeed, Das, Wu, and Cords all assent that playing in the Silk Road Ensemble has allowed them to engage in and learn through the same cross-cultural contacts that the group advocates for its audience. “You grow up doing one thing well and thinking this is how the world is. It’s only once you meet people from other cultures—be it musical or otherwise—that you realize that there are ways of looking at the same thing differently,” Das says. “That has had an impact on all of us.”

“I think a lot of it is…the personal relationships that have been forged in the group,” Cords adds. “I’ve seen this group grow from a collection of strangers to a pretty vibrant creative cauldron, and I think that sends that message out into the world more strongly because we’re doing it ourselves.” But the underlying goal is larger than the group itself, the members note. “I’d…be totally open to the idea that some student at Harvard could create something much better than what we have,” Cords says when asked about the possibility of a student group modeled on the Silk Road Ensemble.

“It takes time. But someone has to do it…. Every year we’re [playing concerts], and the students [and] faculty will get it in their heads,” Wu says.

“You hold the torch for a while,” Cords agrees. “But it’s actually a great moment when you can see that torch going somewhere else—and in a better and greater way than you could have imagined.”

—Staff writer Victoria Lin can be reached at victoria.lin@thecrimson.com.