A Yo-Yo Ma Project Brings Together Musicians From Warring Nations

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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/10/a-yo-yo-ma-project-brings-together-musicians-from-warring-nations/280458/


Yo-Yo Ma, left, performs with two members of the Silk Road Ensemble at Carnegie Hall in 2002. (Osamu Honda/AP)


As one of America’s most renowned classical musicians and a UN peace ambassador, Yo-Yo Ma has traveled the world, performing in front of audiences ranging from presidents to school children. His musical encounters led him to believe in music’s power to diminish ideological differences. Fifteen years ago, he tested this theory by inviting 50 musicians from around the world to Tanglewood in Lenox, Mass. for an experiment in intercultural engagement. The outcome was a revelation. Musicians from a spectrum of countries—including nations in conflict with one another—developed kinship through the act of musical collaboration.

Out of this experience, Ma decided to create the Silk Road Project (not to be confused with Silk Road, the recently shuttered online marketplace). Ma’s is an organization that seeks to foster cross-cultural understanding through music, education and cultural entrepreneurship. Bringing together the Galician bagpipe, the Chinese pipa, the Japanese shakuhachi, the Persian kamancheh, the Indian tabla, and many other global sounds ensures that audiences around the world are exposed to instruments and sounds they haven’t heard before.