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Students from Providence, Pawtucket, Central Falls and Woonsocket, RI, filled the RISD auditorium for a performance and interactive workshop

3/9/2009 1:15:00 PM

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Wu Tong on sheng, Yo-Yo Ma on cello and Ali Asgar Mammadov on tar, performing for Rhode Island high school students

3/9/2009 1:25:00 PM

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Colin Jacobsen on violin, Nicholas Cords on viola and Jeffrey Beecher on contrabass during the workshop

3/9/2009 1:29:00 PM

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Kojiro Umezaki (right) holds up his shakuhachi while Shane Shanahan describes how the Japanese bamboo flute is played

3/9/2009 1:15:00 PM

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Percussionists Shane Shanahan and Joseph Gramley performing “Saidi Swing”

3/9/2009 1:26:00 PM

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Renowned Azerbaijani mugham vocalist Alim Qasimov and his daughter Fargana Qasimova performing a section of “Layla and Majnun,” a new work by the Silk Road Ensemble

3/9/2009 1:27:00 PM

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Yo-Yo Ma and other Ensemble members answered questions from students

3/9/2009 1:27:00 PM

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The workshop ended with Silk Road Ensemble percussionists Joseph Gramley, Shane Shanahan, Mark Suter and Sandeep Das performing “Vocussion," a rap-style piece they created

3/9/2009 1:30:00 PM

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“Vocussion” has the audience clapping in time

3/9/2009 1:22:00 PM

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Teachers and students were invited onstage to improvise their own vocal percussion with the Ensemble

3/9/2009 1:23:00 PM

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One teacher in attendance gave a shout-out to his students in the audience

3/9/2009 1:31:00 PM

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Silk Road Ensemble percussionist Shane Shanahan discussed music with a student following the performance

3/9/2009 1:24:00 PM

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RISD students gathered in the Tap Room to hear from “Layla and Majnun” set designer Henrik Soderstrom and watch Road Ensemble musicians perform excerpts

3/9/2009 1:33:00 PM

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Recent RISD alumnus Henrik Soderstrom explains the inspiration for his design for the set for “Layla and Majnun” and his artistic process

3/9/2009 1:36:00 PM

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Henrik Soderstrom with Francesca Lohmann, who hand-calligraphed the libretto for “Layla and Majnun,” in background

3/9/2009 1:33:00 PM

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RISD students listening to Henrik Soderstrom’s talk in the Tap Room

3/9/2009 1:34:00 PM

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One student sketched the Silk Road Ensemble musicians while they performed during Henrik Soderstrom’s demonstration

3/9/2009 1:35:00 PM

Rhode Island, U.S. – Student Workshop & RISD Residency, March 4, 2009

An hour-long performance workshop for Rhode Island middle- and high school students began when Wu Tong and Kojiro Umezaki processed into the RISD Auditorium playing Wandering Winds, an improvised duet on the Chinese bawu and Japanese shakuhachi, both bamboo flutes. The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma then launched into Mountains Are Far Away (a piece the Silk Road Project commissioned in 2004 from Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor) before beginning a conversation with the audience of approximately 500 students and teachers from Providence, Central Falls, Woonsocket and Pawtucket.

Percussionist Shane Shanahan taught students the basic rhythm of his percussion piece Saidi Swing, and mugham vocalists Alim Qasimov and Fargana Qasimova joined the Ensemble for Kor Arab and Shikasta, two songs demonstrating vastly different mughams, or modes. When students had opportunities to ask questions, they probed into the backgrounds of the Silk Road Ensemble musicians, asking about their musical training and how they had begun collaborating, how much of their music was improvised and how their improvisations together had developed over the years. The workshop closed with a surprise for students, as their teachers were asked to join the Silk Road Ensemble onstage for some on-the-spot improvisation as part of a vocal percussion piece called Vocussion, which had the students erupting into applause.

This workshop was a culmination of a semester of Silk Road-inspired lessons in several Rhode Island schools. Thanks to the presenting organization FirstWorks, the students had previously received a study guide based on the Silk Road Project's Along the Silk Road curriculum. Earlier in the year, Silk Road Ensemble member Yang Wei had also visited four of the participating schools to play pipa and speak with students.

After the workshop, the Ensemble headed to a talk with recent Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) alumnus Henrik Soderstrom, who had worked with the Ensemble in a previous residency at RISD and had recently designed the set for the new multimedia chamber arrangement of Layla and Majnun the Ensemble was premiering in the U.S. during its North American tour. Soderstrom described his goal of articulating the immense sense of separation between the two protagonists in visual terms and his detailed process of creating the paintings that are projected during the performance. Also with him was fellow recent RISD graduate Francesca Lohmann, whose hand-painted calligraphy was used for the onstage libretto. Silk Road Ensemble musicians played excerpts from Layla and Majnun, giving the RISD students in attendance a behind-the-scenes look at this new work.

Participating Artists

Jeffrey Beecher, contrabass
Nicholas Cords, viola
Sandeep Das, tabla
Jonathan Gandelsman, violin
Joseph Gramley, percussion
Rauf Islamov, kamancheh
Colin Jacobsen, violin
Yo-Yo Ma, cello
Ali Asgar Mammadov, tar
Alim Qasimov, mugham vocals
Fargana Qasimova, mugham vocals
Shane Shanahan, percussion
Henrik Soderstrom, set designer
Mark Suter, percussion
Kojiro Umezaki, shakuhachi
Wu Tong, sheng