Silk Road Ensemble with Yo Yo Ma April 7, 2011

San Francisco Performances presents the San Francisco debut of the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma in the Silk Road Project Thursday, April 7 at 8 p.m. at Davies Symphony Hall. The program centers around the world premiere of a new work by Berkeley native Gabriela Lena Frank and "Air to Air," by Argentina's Osvaldo Golijov.

Frank's work, titled "Chayraq!: Rough Guide to a Modern Day Tawantinsuyu," fuses the music of indigenous festivals, religious ceremonies and harvest fiestas of Latin America. Golijov, renowned for works such as Ainadamar and St. Mark Passion, encompasses the classical, Jewish liturgical, klezmer and tango traditions of his Eastern European Jewish household that was transplanted to Argentina. In "Air to Air," he melds Arab Christian and Muslim sounds, indigenous Mexican prayers and an 18th-century Sardinian protest song.

Also on the program are Ensemble member and renowned pipa virtuoso Wu Man's Night Thoughts (Wu Man is familiar to the Bay Area through her collaborations with the Kronos Quartet and other artists); and Gallop of a Thousand Horses by Kayhan Kalhor, three-time Grammy nominee and proponent of Persian music on the kamancheh (Persian spiked fiddle).

This celebratory, transformative event paints the world in the overlapping tones of remarkable artists, from disparate regions where music focuses the boldness of the human spirit. This is the Ensemble's first appearance in San Francisco.

The full ensemble features: Jeffrey Beecher, contrabass; Mike Block, cello; Shanir Blumenkranz, oud; Nicholas Cords, viola; Jonathan Gandelsman, violin; Joseph Gramley, percussion; Colin Jacobsen, violin; Kayhan Kalhor, kamancheh; Yo-Yo Ma, cello; Cristina Pato, gaita; Shane Shanahan, percussion; Mark Suter, percussion; Kojiro Umezaki, shakuhachi; Wu Man, pipa.
For tickets and more information, visit sfperformances.org or call 415.392.2545.

Official Website: http://sfperformances.org/performances/1011/SilkRoadEnsemble.html