Silkroad Up-Close offers a closer look at some of the extraordinary artists who make up the Silkroad Ensemble and at the ideas, traditions, and relationships that shape their work. Created as an intimate counterpart to Silkroad’s large-scale concert presentations, this flagship series gives Ensemble members the space to lead: inviting collaborators, tracing musical lineages, and developing programs rooted in their own creative lives. The result is a portrait of Silkroad from the inside, revealing not only the breadth of traditions represented within the Ensemble, but the curiosity and exchange that continually transform them.
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PROGRAM 1
Silkroad Up-Close featuring Yacouba Sissoko & Mike Block Duo
Mike Block is an American cellist and singer from Kansas, and Yacouba Sissoko, master of the kora, hails from Mali. Together, the two musicians meld West African and American traditions through an intimate collaboration that features original compositions and adaptations of traditional folk repertoire.
PROGRAM 2
Silkroad Up-Close featuring Maeve Gilchrist and Seamus Egan
Into The Ice
Great stories have the capacity to be rediscovered many times. Rediscover the epic story of Ernest Shackleton’s 1914 Trans-Antarctic Expedition in this new and innovative collaboration between Irish Music Icon, Seamus Egan and lauded New York based Scots/Irish harper Maeve Gilchrist; through their shared lens of traditional Celtic Music and utilizing a myriad of traditional instruments alongside electronic manipulation, sound design, poetry and spoken word, they invite you to step into the world of cruel ice, true camaraderie, austere beauty and human ego set against the backdrop of Europe in World War One and an Irishman far from home.
Over five Wednesday evenings at National Sawdust, Silkroad artists and special guests come together in performances that cross generations and geographies, moving freely between inherited forms and new composition, improvisation and experimentation.
The intimate setting of National Sawdust brings audiences closer to the individual artists of the Ensemble, creating space for the musical connections, discoveries, and moments of spontaneity that can only emerge when artists and audiences share an intimate musical experience.
Join us for the other events in this series:
ABOUT SILKROAD
Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998, recognizing the historical Silk Road as a model for cultural collaboration—for the exchange of ideas, tradition, and innovation across borders. In a groundbreaking experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a musical language founded in difference, thus creating the foundation of Silkroad: both a touring ensemble comprised of world-class musicians from all over the globe and a Boston-based non-profit organization working to make a positive impact across borders through the arts.
Today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens and President and CEO Ben Hartley, Silkroad leads social impact initiatives and educational programming alongside the creation of new music by the Grammy Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble.
To learn more, please visit silkroad.org and @silkroadproject on social media.
This is a seated performance. If you require accessibility accommodations, please email boxoffice@nationalsawdust.org.
ABOUT MIKE BLOCK
Mike Block is a multi-style cello player, composer, singer, and educator, with a passion for cross-cultural collaborations. Hailed as “one of the bravest, most intriguing musicians on the American fusion scene” (Gramophone), he was acclaimed by the New York Times for his "vital rich-hued solo playing”, and “a true artist... a sight to behold” by Salt Lake City Desert News. In addition to solo performances, Mike’s touring bands include Biribá Union, Mike Block Trio, duo with Indian tabla player Sandeep Das, and Djékady, a West-African fusion band with Balla Kouyaté. Since 2005, Mike has been a member of the Silk Road Ensemble, founded by Yo-Yo Ma, with which he earned a 2017 Grammy® Award.
As an innovator, Mike is among the first wave of cellists to adopt a strap to stand and move while performing using his own patented design, The Block Strap, and is the Musical Instrument Consultant for Forte3D, the world’s first 3D-Printed carbon fiber cello. In 2020, Mike founded Play For The Vote, which organizes musical performances at polling locations across the country on Election Days with the goal of creating a more positive voting experience.
As an educator, Mike is dedicated to creating transformative experiences, and is the Founder/Director of the Mike Block String Camp in Vero Beach, FL, Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop in Boston, MA, and Hangzhou, China, and teaches over 400 cello students online through his Multi-Style Cello School at ArtistWorks.com. Since 2018, he has been on faculty at the New England Conservatory.
ABOUT YACOUBA SISSOKO
Master kora player Yacouba Sissoko devotes his musical gift to expand the awareness of West African history and culture, spread the word of peace, and empower his listeners to take charge and realize their imagined futures. His performances have a magical effect on audiences as he skillfully transforms traditional songs and stories that he learned from his forefathers into modern day messages of peace, love, and harmony.
His flexible virtuosity, which enables him to move seamlessly from one musical genre to another, has attracted the attention of an array of musicians who have sought him out as a collaborator.
All the while, Yacoba exposes new audiences to the enchanting sounds of the kora—a 21-stringed instrument that is plucked and produces a distinctive sound that is quickly associated with West Africa.
https://yacousiskora.com/
ABOUT MAEVE GILCHRIST
Edinburgh born harpist and composer Maeve Gilchrist has been credited as an innovator on her native instrument and taken the Celtic (lever) Harp to new levels of performance and visibility with her virtuosic performance style and compositional explorations. Currently based in Kingston, NY, Maeve tours internationally as a solo artist and composer and as a member of the Grammy-Award-winning Silkroad ensemble and with Arooj Aftab. She is a regular visiting artist at the Berklee College of Music and has a number of published instructional books and acclaimed recordings, including her most recent album, The Harpweaver, which The Irish Times described in their five-star review as, “buoyant, sprightly and utterly beguiling….a snapshot of a musician at the top of her game.” Maeve is currently a Dumbarton Oaks Fellow as well as the Artistic Director of the cutting-edge Rockport Celtic Festival.
ABOUT SEAMUS EGAN
It’s hard to think of an artist in traditional Irish music more influential than Seamus Egan. From his beginnings as a teen prodigy, to his groundbreaking solo work with Shanachie Records, to his founding of Irish-American powerhouse band Solas, to his current work as one of the leading composers and interpreters of the tradition, Egan has inspired multiple generations of musicians and helped define the sound of Irish music today. As a multi-instrumentalist, he’s put his mark on the sound of the Irish flute, tenor banjo, guitar, mandolin, tin whistle, and low whistle, among others. As a composer, he was behind the soundtrack for the award-winning film “The Brothers McMullen,” co-wrote Sarah McLachlan’s breakout hit, “I Will Remember You,” and has scored numerous documentaries and indie films since. As a bandleader, Solas was the preeminent Irish-American band of their generation for decades, continuously renewing Irish music with fresh ideas. As a performer, few others can make so many instruments or such wickedly complex ornaments seem so effortless. Through composition, an innovative approach to sound design and his ongoing solo project: The Seamus Egan Project, Egan continues to explore the further reaches of the Irish tradition, and beyond.