Silk Road Project - The Silk Road Ensemble

The Silk Road Ensemble

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 59 musicians, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers from varies Eurasian cultures interesting in maintaining the authenticity of their own cultural heritage and, at the same time, exchanging ideas across 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:

• Siamak Aghaei - santur/composer
• Edward Arron - cello
• Jeffrey Beecher - double bass
• Mike Block - cello
• Nicholas Cords - viola
• Gevorg Dabaghyan - duduk
• Sandeep Das - tabla/composer
• Joel Fan - piano
• Haruka Fujii - percussion
• Jonathan Gandelsman - violin
• Joseph Gramley - percussion/composer
• Ben Haggarty - storyteller
• He Cui - sheng
• Hu Jianbing - sheng, bawu
• Rauf Islamov - kamancheh
• Colin Jacobsen - violin/composer
• Siamak Jahangiry - ney
• Kayhan Kalhor - kamancheh/composer
• Khongorzul Ganbaatar - urtiin duu (long song)
• Dong-Won Kim - janggo, vocals/composer
• Ji Huyun Kim - kayagum, vocals
• You-Young Kim - viola
• Li Hui - pipa
• Liu Lin - sanxian
• Ali Asgar Mammadov - tar
• Max Mandel - viola
• Gulia Mashurova - harp
• Kevork Mourad - visual artist
• Cristina Pato - Galician bagpipe
• Alim Qasimov - mugham vocals
• Fargana Qasimova - mugham vocals
• Bassam Saba - oud, ney/composer
• Shane Shanahan - percussion/composer
• Mark Suter - percussion/composer
• Kojiro Umezaki - shakuhachi/composer
• Wu Man - pipa
• Wu Tong - sheng, bawu/composer
• Betti Xiang - erhu
• Yang Wei - pipa
• DaXun Zhang - double bass

Silk Road Ensemble composers and arrangers include:

• Rabih Abou-Khalil
• Christopher Adler
• Franghiz Ali-Zadeh
• Jia Daqun
• Gabriela Lena Frank
• Osvaldo Golijov
• Jeeyoung Kim
• Angel Lam
• Alisher Latif-Zadeh
• Ljova (Lev Zhurbin)
• Nurlanbek Nyshanov
• Sansargereltekh Sangidorj
• Vache Sharafyan
• Byambasuren Sharav
• Giovanni Sollima
• Dmitri Yanov-Yanovsky
• Zhao Jiping
• Zhao Lin
• Evan Ziporyn