Sometimes it seems that Yo-yo Ma (馬友友) has all the virtues. He’s an outstandingly fine classical instrumentalist yet routinely plays with musicians from other traditions. He supports many charities, has appeared on innumerable TV shows and has a happy family life. He projects a relaxed, sunny and benevolent personality. Lastly, he promotes cross-cultural harmony across Central Asia via his Silk Road Project, thereby, in a time of much religion-based dissention, uniting mainly Muslim peoples with Christians, Confucians, Buddhists and non-believers.
And he really is willing to try anything. He’ll play in an avant-garde style, welcome James Taylor onto his stage and laugh at his jokes, and jam with folk instrumentalists from just about anywhere on the planet, while remaining rooted in the great cello classics of Bach, Dvorak and Shostakovich.
Next week he’s in Taiwan again with his Silk Road Ensemble, this time for three concerts starting in Taipei on Thursday. It’s part of an Asian tour that will have already seen them in Seoul and Macau, and will take them on to Bangkok (all being well) and Singapore.
There’ll be 13 performers for the Taipei concert, including players of the shakuhachi, pipa (�?, sheng (笙) and kamancheh. The program concludes with a performance of US composer Osvaldo Golijov’s Air to Air (featured on the Ensemble’s 2009 CD Off the Map on Harmonia Mundi’s World Village label). Given that Golijov has Eastern European Jewish ancestry, this is yet another key ingredient in Ma’s “world music” project.
In Taichung and Kaohsiung there will be even more performers, with the original group joined by adepts of the tabla, ney and ruan (阮), plus special guest artist Vesal Arbzadeh on the Iranian setar. How typical of Ma to go out of his way to make sure that Iran (as Persia was a major state along the old Silk Road route) is central to his comprehensive and inclusive undertaking.
In the face of ongoing political problems in Central Asia, Yo-Yo Ma’s project testifies to the natural inclination of musicians everywhere to perform alongside one another, and happily make music together. He’s giving more concerts in Taiwan than anywhere else, and he’s sure to be given a very warm welcome at all of them.
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