Entertainment :: Music
The Silk Road Ensemble by Robert Israel
EDGE ContributorTuesday Mar 10, 2009If
you could listen in on a composer’s imagination, let’s say you could
plug your iPod earpiece directly into their mind, what would their
imagination sound like?
Yo-Yo Ma posed this question on March 8 during the first of two Celebrity Series of Boston concerts of the Silk Road Ensemble
at Symphony Hall. Known for his sonorous cello and mischievous smile,
Ma takes delight in serving up a full range of musical offerings, from
a John Williams composition performed with an ensemble at President
Obama’s inauguration, or accompanying James Taylor on his recent album
that featured a stirring version of Leonard Cohen’s "Suzanne."
The
Silk Road Ensemble, of which he is artistic director, is composed a
multitude of international players who create musical magic with
strings, percussion, and a host of ancient instruments from China,
India, Japan and the Caucasus. They succeed by not only plugging
directly into the imaginations of the composers - most of them unknown
to audiences in the States - but to listeners as well.
In
the second selection, a composition by Angel Lam titled "Empty
Mountain, Spirit Rain," the audience was treated to the sounds of that
multi-layered city of Hong Kong, where traffic noises and rainfall and
misty harbor islands conspire to create a dreamscape. Kojiro Umezaki
played the shakuhachi, an eerie instrument that dates from the 15th
century. It makes a most hypnotic sound, softer than a panpipe but just
as breathy, with a range that touches the earth in one breath before
soaring heavenward in the next breath. This shakuhachi, and the
beguiling composition by Angel Lam, calls to listeners from a faraway
place in softly probing and enticing mysteries that are never fully
unraveled.
If you could plug into a composer’s imagination, what would it sound like? The
musical numbers lend themselves easily to storytelling, another ancient
art form that creates a strong cohesion with the instruments. The music
is colorful, sensuous, and rhythmic. It is easy to envisage dancers
moving across a stage, or in front of a caravan, by a campfire, or in a
grand and graceful room where listeners, sitting cross-legged on tatami
mats, gently swoon to these aural pleasures. The hypnotic effect of
these instruments cannot be understated. The pipa, a short-necked
wooden lute from China, was played majestically by Wu Man, and it took
me back to a theatrical performance I attended many years ago in Japan
where a troupe of kabuki players mimed their disconsolate lives while
musicians plunked away on the pipa’s quietly insistent strings.
During
the second half of the performance, the ensemble gathered to accompany
Kojiro Umezaki who narrated a series of Zen koans titled "Paths of
Parables," by the composer Dimitri Yanov-Tanovsky. The stories were
remarkable not for what they said but for what they left unsaid, and
while one parable mined the depths of humility and humor, it left this
listener with questions about what is heard and what is often lost in
our daily communications.
It should be noted
that while Yo-Yo Ma may be the name emblazoned on the marquee, he is
really a member of the ensemble as opposed to a featured soloist. His
cello, held close to his torso, has strings originally fashioned from a
gut of an animal; when his bow, fashioned from horse hairs, is drawn
across these strings, the result is a sound that mimics the human
voice. While it would be wonderful to listen to a recital by this
gifted musician, he prefers to be seen (and heard) as a member of the
ensemble.
All the musicians were
remarkable, with warm kudos going out to Sandeep Das for his playful
and teasing tabla, to Wu Tong for his entertaining sheng and bawu, and
to the aforementioned Wu Man for her beguiling pipa that enticed
listeners to delve into deep dreams.
The Silk
Road Ensemble travels extensively, collects music everywhere they go,
and brings back their interpretations to global audiences. They are
musical ambassadors, and with dissonant and disparate pieces they unite
us, returning us to inner harmonies and to the still unexplored areas
of our own lives and imaginations.
by The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma
Robert Israel writes about theater, arts, culture and travel.
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