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

Providence (Rhode Island), USA - Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble will embark on a tour of China in October 2007, featuring concert performances and cultural exchange workshops in Shanghai, Suzhou, Hong Kong and Beijing.

During the tour, the acclaimed cellist and renowned Ensemble will perform a diverse selection of traditional and new works inspired by the ancient Silk Road trade route, including an arrangement of the ancient Chinese folk melody Ambush from Ten Sides by Wu Tong, a respected proponent of Chinese traditional music and a popular rock musician in China, and Li Cangsang.

The highlights of the tour, presented by Music Nation in association with Opus 3 Artists and the Silk Road Project, will include a concert in Beijing's Forbidden City Concert Hall and the debut of a new song by composer Osvaldo Golijov during the official Opening Ceremony of the Special Olympics in Shanghai on October 2. Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble previously toured China in 2001.

"The Silk Road Ensemble and I are so looking forward to being in China," stated Yo-Yo Ma, acclaimed cellist and founder and artistic director of the Silk Road Project. "As China heads toward the Olympics, ever mindful of 'One World, One Dream,' at the Silk Road Project we too are looking at and thinking about our one world. Participating in the Opening Ceremony of the Special Olympics, we are reminded that the heroes in our world come from many different places and many different walks of life. In the music we'll be bringing to Shanghai, Suzhou, Hong Kong and Beijing we strive to celebrate the uniqueness of people and cultures that fuels creativity, while honoring the multiple sources that coalesce to become traditions."

In addition to their performing schedule, the Silk Road Ensemble musicians will also conduct workshops with Hong Kong students and with music students at the Beijing Conservatory. The workshops are part of the Silk Road Project's Innovators in Tradition exchange program with musicians from Azerbaijan, China and India, funded in part by the United States Department of State Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which fosters cultural exchange between the U.S. and countries throughout the world.

The Silk Road Project is a not-for-profit arts and educational organization inspired by the interchange of culture and ideas along the historic Silk Road, an ancient network of trade routes that linked the peoples and traditions of Asia and Europe from the first millennium B.C.E. through the middle of the second millennium C.E. This series of concerts and workshops marks an exciting opportunity for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble musicians to re-visit China on their first tour to China since 2001.

The China tour follows the successful release in July of New Impossibilities, a new recording from Sony Classical of the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma in concert with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, which captures the unprecedented creative collaboration during the yearlong celebration of Silk Road Chicago.

The China tour also follows the Silk Road Project's first visit to Switzerland in August, which featured performances by Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble at the renowned Lucerne Festival and a Silk Road Ensemble residency at Museum Rietberg in Zurich.

The Silk Road Ensemble Concert Tour

October 2, 2007 Opening Ceremony of the Special Olympics, Shanghai Stadium, Shanghai
October 4, 2007 Shanghai Oriental Art Centre, Shanghai
October 5, 2007 Grand Theatre, Suzhou Science and Cultural Arts Centre, Suzhou
October 9, 2007 Concert Hall, Hong Kong Cultural Centre, Hong Kong
October 12, 2007 Forbidden City Concert Hall, Beijing

About the Silk Road Project

Inspired by the interchange of culture, ideas and innovations along the historic trade route, the Silk Road Project is a not-for-profit arts and educational organization that connects musicians, composers, artists and audiences from Asia to Europe to the Americas.

Founded in 1998 by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, who serves as its artistic director, and led by Laura Freid, executive director and CEO, the Silk Road Project is a catalyst for promoting innovation and learning through cross-cultural and interdisciplinary partnerships. The Silk Road Project presents performances by the Silk Road Ensemble; commissions interdisciplinary works of music, visual art, and storytelling; and develops educational materials and programming.

Buy New Impossibilities.