Celebrity Series of Boston
Gary Dunning, President and Executive Director
Presents
The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma
15th Anniversary Concert
Wednesday, March 4, 2015, 8pm — Symphony Hall
(Boston) Celebrity Series of Boston will present The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma 15th Anniversary Concert on Wednesday, March 4, 2015, at 8:00pm at Symphony Hall, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, MA. This performance is sponsored by Foley and Lardner LLP. Media partner is 99.5 WCRB.
Tickets for The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma 15th Anniversary Concert start at $45, and are available online at www.celebrityseries.org, by calling CelebrityCharge at (617) 482-6661 Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m.- 4:00 p.m., or at the Symphony Hall Box Office, 301 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston.
This performance marks the Silk Road Ensemble’s fourth appearance with Celebrity Series; its Celebrity Series debut was in 2004 and most recent performance was in 2009.
The Silk Road Ensemble draws together distinguished performers and composers from more than
20 countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas. Since the Ensemble formed under the artistic direction of Yo-Yo Ma in 2000, the group’s artists have eagerly explored contemporary musical crossroads. This global collective has performed throughout Asia, Europe and North America. The Ensemble’s most recent recording, Off the Map, was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album in 2011. Ensemble members explore one another’s traditions, celebrating the multiplicity of approaches to music from around the world. They also develop new repertoire that responds to the multicultural reality of our global society.
The Silk Road Project is an internationally minded nonprofit arts, cultural and educational organization founded in 1998. Under Yo-Yo Ma’s artistic direction, the Project promotes collaboration, innovation and learning through the arts. The ancient Silk Road was a network of trading routes that crisscrossed Eurasia from the first millennium B.C.E. through the middle of the second millennium C.E., linking diverse cultures and peoples and promoting an unprecedented sharing of ideas, art, science and innovations. The Silk Road Project presents performances by the Silk Road Ensemble, engages in cross-cultural exchanges and residencies, leads workshops for students, and partners with prominent cultural institutions to create educational programs and materials. Developing new music is a central undertaking of the Project, which has been involved in commissioning and performing nearly 70 new musical and multimedia works from composers and arrangers around the world.
Cellist Yo-Yo Ma maintains a balance between his engagements as a soloist with orchestras worldwide and his recital and chamber music activities. His investigation of music as a means of communication and a vehicle for the migration of ideas inspired the founding of the Silk Road Project. Since the Project’s inception, more than 60 works have been commissioned specifically for the Silk Road Ensemble, which tours annually. Mr. Ma also serves as the Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Institute for Learning, Access and Training. His work focuses on the transformative power music can have in individuals’ lives, and on increasing the number and variety of opportunities audiences have to experience music in their communities.
Mr. Ma was born in Paris to Chinese parents who later moved the family to New York. He began to study cello at the age of four, attended the Juilliard School and in 1976 graduated from Harvard University. He has received numerous awards, among them the 2001 National Medal of Arts, the 2006 Sonning Prize, the 2008 World Economic Forum’s Crystal Award, and the 2010 Presidential Medal of Freedom. Mr. Ma was recently selected as a 2011 Kennedy Center Honoree. Mr. Ma serves as a UN Messenger of Peace and as a member of the President’s Committee on the Arts & the Humanities. He has performed for eight American presidents, most recently at the invitation of President Obama on the occasion of the 56th Inaugural Ceremony.
The Silk Road Project has been affiliated with Harvard University since 2005. The first five-year partnership consisted of annual residencies with Silk Road Ensemble members to promote cross-cultural and interdisciplinary interaction with students and faculty. A new five-year residency, begun in
July 2010, brought the Silk Road Project’s office to Harvard with the aim of integrating the Project more fully into campus life and expanding opportunities for cultural exchange and interdisciplinary collaboration. Silk Road Project residencies juxtaposing art and artifacts with music have taken place at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts; the Nara National Museum in Nara, Japan; the Rubin Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History in New York; the Art Institute of Chicago; and the Rietberg Museum in Zurich, Switzerland.
Program:
Kojiro Umezaki: Side In Side Out (2012) *
Giovanni Sollima: Taranta Project (2008) *
Cristina Pato: New work (2014/15) ^
Zhao Lin: Paramita (2014) *^
Mike Block, Sandeep Das, Colin Jacobsen, Kayhan Kalhor: Jugalbandi
Pórt Na bPúcai: Traditional, arr. Nicholas Cords
Kinan Azmeh: Wedding (2008)
* commissioned by Silkroad
^ premiere
About Celebrity Series of Boston
Celebrity Series of Boston was founded in 1938 by pianist and impresario Aaron Richmond. Over the course of its 76-year history, Celebrity Series has presented an array of the world’s greatest performing artists, including Sergei Rachmaninoff, Arturo Toscanini, Ignace Paderewski, Artur Rubenstein, Vladimir Horowitz, Glenn Gould, Fritz Kreisler, Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, Andrés Segovia, Kirsten Flagstad, Marian Anderson, Luciano Pavarotti, Béla Bartók, Igor Stravinsky, Martha Graham, Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Mstislav Rostropovich, and the New York City Opera Company.
The Celebrity Series has been bringing the very best performers–from orchestras and chamber ensembles, vocal and piano music, to dance companies, jazz, and more–to Boston’s major concert halls for 76 years. The Celebrity Series of Boston believes in the power of excellence and innovation in the performing arts to enrich life experiences, transform lives and build better communities. Through its education initiatives, the Celebrity Series seeks to build a community of Greater Boston where the performing arts are a valued, lifelong, shared experience–on stages, in schools, at home– everywhere. For more information on Celebrity Series of Boston, call (617) 482-2595 or visit us online at www.celebrityseries.org.
The Celebrity Series of Boston, Inc. receives generous support from Amy & Joshua Boger; Donna & Mike Egan; Gabor Garai & Susan Pravda; David & Harriet Griesinger; Paul L. King; The Little Family Foundation; Susanne Marcus Collins Foundation; Eleanor & Frank Pao; The John S. and Cynthia Reed Foundation; Sanjay & Sangeeta Verma; Nancy Richmond Winsten; Charlesbank Capital Partners LLC; First Republic Bank; Foley & Lardner; Massachusetts Cultural Council;The Peabody Foundation; PTC; Tufts Health Plan; The D.L. Saunders Real Estate & Hotel Investment Group, AMO; Vertex Pharmaceuticals.
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