The Silkroad Ensemble was created in 1998 by acclaimed musician Yo-Yo Ma as an effort to use globalization for good in the world of music, bringing together musicians from various backgrounds and cultures to create an unprecedented concert experience for audiences.
Now, as Silkroad celebrates its 20th year, musicians far and wide are still coming together to collaborate as an ensemble, presenting a wide array of music to eager audiences.
A local audience will experience the Silkroad Ensemble’s one-of-a-kind, culturally-infused music at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday at Penn State’s Eisenhower Auditorium.
Karen Ouzounian is a cellist in the ensemble, with a background in traditional Western classical music and chamber music. Ouzounian has been personally touched by a range of cultures, as her family originated in Armenia, her parents grew up in Lebanon and she grew up in Canada. It’s this unique mix of influences that she says makes her feel right at home among the Silkroad Ensemble.
“I think that my own family migration story…in a way, it made me feel at home in these moments of intersection of culture,” she says. Silkroad’s work, she adds, is “really focused on bringing people together through culture.”
Ouzounian’s diverse background is hardly anything out of place among the Silkroad musicians. The ensemble features musicians from all around the world, bringing a wealth of expertise, cultures and traditions to the table.
“There’s really an amazing collection of musicians who are coming together from different places and different traditions, from Venezuela, from China, from Iran, from the U.S. and Canada, from Amsterdam and Hungary. There’s an incredible range and actually unusual combination of instruments…” says Ouzounian.
Some of the diverse instruments audiences can expect to hear at a Silkroad concert include the pipa, a four-stringed, Chinese instrument, sometimes likened to a lute; sheng, a Chinese reed wind instrument; kamancheh, an Iranian string instrument, distantly related to European violins; and electronic instruments.
Just as the blend of cultures in the ensemble impacts the instruments used, so do the many cultures represented influence the concert program. During Silkroad’s current tour, for example, compositions include modern works inspired by Turkmen melodies, a 1685 English baroque composition and a protest song from 18th-century Sardinia.
“It’s really going to be, I think for the ears, a true feast,” says Ouzounian. “There will be improvised music, fixed compositions, traditional music, new music that was just composed and there will be very old music. I don’t think people will hear music that’s spanning a 400-year range elsewhere. Another thing that I’ve always felt is very special to this group is, I think there’s really a feeling of joy in the music making, of warmth and connection between the musicians on stage and with the audience, that I think [audiences] will really enjoy.”
This feeling of warmth and connection is partially due to the musicians’ long-standing relationships. Many have worked together for decades. Rehearsals, at this point, Ouzounian explains, feel “like old friends coming together each time, who understand each other’s language and work processes.”
It’s from these relationships that Ouzounian finds her inspiration for her work within the ensemble. “While we’re on tour, throughout the tour, my inspiration really comes from the amazing musicians who are on stage and the sounds and the larger experience that’s being created and sculpted in the moment. On tour, we’ll have several performances, but each performance will feel and be different. There’s a feeling of openness and flexibility and intense focus in the moment that I find very inspiring.”
Tickets for Tuesday’s performance — $52 for an adult, $15 for a University Park student, and $42 for a person 18 and younger — are available by calling online, by phone at 814-863-0255 or in person at Eisenhower Auditorium, Penn State Downtown Theatre Center and the Bryce Jordan Center.
For those that do attend, Ouzounian says she hopes they walk away with feelings of “joy, curiosity, energy, passion [and] empathy” having been given “a new experience that they’ll cherish for a long time.”
A screening of “The Music of Strangers,” Academy Award-winning director Morgan Neville’s 2016 documentary about Silkroad, will take place at 7 p.m. Monday in the HUB-Robeson Center’s Freeman Auditorium. The screening is free and open to the public and will be followed by a Q&A with selected Silkroad musicians
