Europe – Music Festivals Tour
September 8-20, 2009
For the first time in more than two years, the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma returned to Europe to perform in music festivals in six cities:
- London, England: BBC Proms
- Ghent, Belgium: Flanders Festival International
- Brussels, Belgium: Palais des Beaux-Arts
- Cologne, Germany: Cologne Philharmonic
- Lucerne, Switzerland: Lucerne Festival
- Bucharest, Romania: George Enescu International Festival
Three different concert programs reflected the diversity of the musicians’ home countries, from China to Iran, from India to the Americas. The European premieres of Giovanni Sollima’s The Taranta Project and Osvaldo Golijov’s Air to Air were musical highlights.
Commissioned in 2008, The Taranta Project premiered in New York City in June 2009. Sicilian composer Sollima’s compositions combine elements of classical, rock and jazz with ethnic musical traditions from Mediterranean lands.
Golijov’s Air to Air reflects similarly diverse influences. Christian and Arab melodies infuse the four movements, as well as indigenous voices from Mexico and protest song from 18th-century Sardinia. Golijov has described Air to Air as “music borne from community.”
Three pieces performed on the tour are featured on the Silk Road Ensemble’s new album Off the Map:
- Air to Air by Osvaldo Golijov
- Sulvasutra by Evan Ziporyn, a tabla-driven enactment of the creation of the universe
- Empty Mountain, Spirit Rain by Angel Lam, a piece in memory of her grandmother, with a soaring shakuhachi above an urban bass groove
Programs also included compositions and arrangements by Silk Road Ensemble members—from Where the Wind Will Take Us, an adaptation by Siamak Aghaei and Colin Jacobson of an ancient Persian lament, to Silent City by kamancheh master Kayhan Kalhor, commemorating the Kurdish village of Hallabja. A Silk Road Suite; Yanzi, a duet between vocalist Wu Tong and cellist Yo-Yo Ma; and Wine Madness, a Chinese piece from the third-century Wei dynasty, rounded out the programs.
Though the travel, rehearsal and performance schedule was fast-paced, the Ensemble was thrilled to present its first concerts in Ghent and Bucharest and to return with this repertoire of new music to some familiar stomping grounds, such as the BBC Proms and the Lucerne Festival.
MEDIA COVERAGE:
Last night of the Proms at Royal Albert Hall: Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble was glorious
September 14, 2009 – The Times (U.K.) Last of the late night Proms: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble
September 13, 2009 – Londonist Gig
at the end of the earth: The brilliant cellist Yo-Yo Ma's Silk
Road-inspired Prom has been 10 well-traveled years in the making
August 30, 2009 – The Independent (U.K.) Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble heads for the Proms
August 22, 2009 – The Times (U.K.) |