JULIA WEBER
Assistant Editor
At 8 p.m. Saturday, Silkroad Ensemble will bring its latest program, titled “Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual,” to the Amphitheater stage for a night of celebration.
The collective of musicians spans nationalities, traditions, instruments and ideas, and they’ll bring this eclectic mix of disciplines, perspectives and approaches to their craft to perform “Sanctuary” for Chautauquans to experience together.
On the cusp of Week Nine’s “The Importance of Gathering: A Collaboration with the Smithsonian Folklife Festival,” Silkroad Ensemble will deliver a performance developed in celebration of America 250, exploring “humanity’s enduring impulse to turn to music in moments of upheaval, grief, and transformation,” according to the program’s description.
Silkroad Ensemble was established by Yo-Yo Ma originally as a vessel for cultural collaboration sharing ideas, traditions and innovation without being confined by borders. He began with the question: “What happens when strangers meet?” according to Silkroad Ensemble’s website. From there, the ensemble has grown into a collective of world-class musicians from across the globe with a shared goal of making a positive impact across borders through the arts, according to the website.
In a statement shared to the ensemble’s website, Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens said, “We are artists, we lead with art, and we hope to continue to inspire, challenge and confront the best and worst of our species with the talents and creative beauty we have been given. There are many ways of speaking — and we must speak — with every note, every sound, every beat we have within us, as we come beautifully and musically together despite distance, different languages, approaches, trainings and expectations — what Silkroad does is radical and shall remain radical; and art, in its purest sense, rejects the inhumanity of violence and demands that we see each other as we see ourselves. That way, and that way only, is the path to transformative change — and we stand for nothing less.”
In a video interview for Silkroad Ensemble, Giddens said music has always served a crucial role in bringing people together across cultures and time periods.
“In our human history, music has always had really important functions. It is something that you do when you’re working to make the time go faster, it’s something that you do when you’re working with a lot of people to keep things together, it’s something that you sing to your child to get them to sleep, it’s something that you play when people are dancing to keep them moving, it’s something that you engage in while you are worshipping something greater than yourself,” Giddens said.
She explained in the video that music has maintained this function over time, and entertainment constitutes only a small part of music’s role in culture.
“Entertainment was always a very small piece of that, and the rest of it, especially for folks who were not of the elite, was really part of the everyday fabric of human life,” she said.
Through “Sanctuary” and other programs, Giddens said she has had an opportunity to revisit and reconsider the role of music in everyday life, examining its capability to foster a safe, inclusive environment that brings individuals together as a collective.
“When you look at the thousands of years of history that have led us to today, obviously, there has been a lot of upheaval in our global history. There’s always upheaval in the world, but it feels like everything’s sort of picked up,” she said in the video. “I’ve really been thinking about, ‘What is music for?’ and going back to some of those original ideas of creating a safe space for people, creating an energy that is inclusive.”
