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The Silkroad Ensemble began 25 years ago with a single question: “What happens when strangers meet?”
The person asking the question was the eminent cellist Yo-Yo Ma, and his response was to bring together notable musicians from many cultures, including himself, to exchange ideas, traditions, and innovation, along with tunes, harmonies, and rhythms, across national and cultural borders.
“It’s a lofty thing,” says Silkroad Ensemble member Maeve Gilchrist, “but playing together gives us so much hope, which we want to bring to our audiences.”
Gilchrist, a Celtic harp player, will be part of the Silkroad Ensemble when it performs at Kodak Hall on March 26. The show is sponsored by the Eastman School of Music.
Over its quarter-century existence, Silkroad has produced several albums including “Sing Me Home”, a 2016 Grammy winner, and a documentary feature, “The Music of Strangers.” Silkroad’s current artistic director, Rhiannon Giddens, has described their aim as radical: “art, in its purest sense, rejects the inhumanity of violence and demands that we see each other as we see ourselves. That way, and that way only, is the path to transformative change.”
The idea is rooted in history. The so-called Silk Road was a 4,000-mile overland trade route, active for several centuries, with China and India at one end, Spain and the rest of the Mediterranean and central Europe at the other, and central Asia and the Middle East in between. European countries received not only silk, but porcelain, jade, spices, and other valuable commodities; the East benefited with horses, camels, wine, and gold. The trade was also cultural, with Europe and Asia becoming aware of each other’s art, religion, and literature. (More recent scholarship posits that the Silk Road was not a single route, but a network of them.)
In that spirit, the musicians of Silkroad take in dozens of nationalities and artistic traditions from all over the globe: not just nations on the original route like China, Spain, and Syria, but also Japan, India, the United Kingdom and the United States, to name a few.
A large-scale Silkroad Ensemble show can include up to 20 musicians (next Thursday’s will include 11), in a uniquely creative mix of vastly different musical styles, all in harmony. Think of it as a chamber orchestra, only funkier.
You may see a Giddens singing and playing banjo alongside a bluegrass fiddler, Indian performers on sitar or tablas, a Chinese pipa player … and, next week, a Celtic harpist, like Gilchrist.
Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, Gilchrist has an active career all over the musical map, playing traditional music, classical music, jazz, and movies (she’s featured on the soundtrack of “How to Tame Your Dragon: The Hidden World”).
Although she came from a very musical family (including a father who was a notable music critic) she did not have a customary classical-music training, Gilchrist recalls.
“Mostly my interest was in traditional music and the Celtic harp,” she says. “I was not the kind of kid who was OK spending hours alone in the practice room. From the beginning, I was always out performing with other people, as part of a greater musical engine. That turned out to be the perfect educational path for my career, and for taking part in Silkroad.”
Gilchrist describes her career as “musically omnivorous.” It has included studies in jazz at Boston’s Berklee College, performing with the string quartet Brooklyn Rider (which ignited her interest in composing), and being “adopted” by American “Newgrass” fiddlers and banjo players, and traditional music ensembles. The path led her to Silkroad Ensemble about 10 years ago, after participating in a workshop.
“I was bowled over,” Gilchrist says. “This experience was something I hadn’t had in my musical education – not just playing notes, but talking about the philosophy behind them.”
She compares working together on music to “weaving a tapestry.” As in many cultures, the music is often taught by ear and by repetition. “Not everyone in the ensemble reads music, or wants to,” Gilchrist explains. “We create a soundscape based on everyone’s suggestions. It’s like building: you build a foundation and add bricks on top of that. We come from incredibly diverse backgrounds, but we listen to one another and try to make thoughtful artistic choices. It takes time. But as we work together, we relax and the grace and energy come through. We become a family.”
She adds, “And every performance includes improvisation, which keeps it very fresh. When you get so many people working together within their own genres or cultures, sparks are flying. It’s fire!”
Gilchrist sums up the philosophy behind Silkroad, and the feeling they want to instill in their audiences, as generosity of spirit.
“The world is dire need of more connection, which music can provide,” she says. “Music can’t change policies. But great music can perhaps move and change the hearts of the policy makers.”
Eastman Presents Silkroad Ensemble in “Sanctuary – The Power and Resonance of Ritual” on Thursday, March 26 at 7:30 p.m. at Eastman Theatre’s Kodak Hall. Click here for more information.
David Raymond is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer.
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