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Someone using percussion bowls.

© DAVID O’CONNOR

Silk Road Ensemble Instruments
Silk Road Ensemble musicians play a variety of instruments from around the world, some of them as simple as these percussion bowls. Some have origins in a single region; the development of others over time illustrates the interactions among cultures along the historical Silk Road.

Kojiro Umezaki narrates Blue and White at Museum Rietberg in Zurich, Switzerland

Kojiro Umezaki narrates Blue and White at Museum Rietberg in Zurich, Switzerland

© WILL KRACHER

Multimedia Performances

Members of the Silk Road Ensemble collaborate to develop original multimedia performances. These works integrate music with a range of other art forms, such as narrative, visual art and art objects, film, photographs and animation.

The Ensemble has performed the following multimedia works, among others:

  • The Stone Horse: A Silk Road Journey, a story concert involving members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Chicago schoolchildren
  • Blue and White, which traces the migration of blue-and-white porcelain throughout the world
  • The Adventures of Prince Achmed, a new score performed live with the classic animated film
  • Mugham Sayagi, which incorporated live animation
  • Journey to the South, which brought to life an 18th-century emperor’s scroll housed in the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts

“It’s not enough to be incredibly well grounded in a tradition. You really have to want to share it. In a way, part of what joins this group of musicians is virtuosity and generosity.”
– YO-YO MA

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