Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble return to China

Performances range from workshops for students to a world-stage concert

Students thank the Ensemble and Yo-Yo Ma after a concert sponsored by American Express in Tin Shui Wai, Hong Kong Photo courtesy of American Express

The Silk Road Ensemble can make cross-cultural music sound easy—a gift that 19 musicians shared with thousands during a two-week concert tour in Shanghai, Suzhou, Hong Kong and Beijing.

They began on October 2 at Shanghai Stadium at the Opening Ceremony of the Special Olympics 2007 World Games. During the spectacular festivities, the Ensemble performed “Kuai Le” (“Joy”), a song composed by Osvaldo Golijov especially for the occasion, accompanied by an audience of 70,000 playing flutes—a swell of sound the composer likened to “the Milky Way on fire.” Broadcast across China throughout the Special Olympic Games, “Kuai Le” became a popular Silk Road Ensemble encore at every concert hall.

Each concert had three masters of ceremony—captivating pipa player Wu Man, sheng virtuoso and vocalist Wu Tong, and, of course, cellist Yo-Yo Ma. Speaking in Mandarin, they took turns introducing Arabian, Persian, Turkish and Chinese works.

The Ensemble also led workshops with students in Suzhou, Hong Kong and Beijing. In Hong Kong, the musicians traveled to remote Tin Shui Wai, an area with a history of social isolation, poverty and domestic violence, home to many low-income mainland immigrants. Students at the Hong Kong Student Aid Society Primary School had never seen a concert before. After the Ensemble’s workshop, a young boy raised his hand. “Mr. Ma,” he asked, “how can all these musicians perform without a conductor?”

“We trust one another,” Ma answered, “and we communicate through our music.” When asked if he ever didn't feel like practicing, Ma joked that, yes, he had occasionally thought about quitting, prompting another child to declare him and the Ensemble his role models for overcoming the challenges of learning music.

The Ensemble performed its final two concerts at the Hong Kong Cultural Center and Beijing’s Forbidden City Concert Hall. It was difficult to part for homes in Iran, India, Japan, Singapore and North America, but all came away grateful for another enlightening journey.

The Road to Beijing, a DVD of the Silk Road Ensemble’s experiences in China, was filmed during the tour. In conjunction with a new curriculum from the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), it will be released in Spring 2008.