Masterful Project
by Leslie on 4/5/22The Soraya (The Valley's Center for the Performing Arts) - NorthridgeBeautiful and captivating sounds and images unfolding in real time. Virtuoso musicians and visual artist. Poignant.
Venue
Beautiful and captivating sounds and images unfolding in real time. Virtuoso musicians and visual artist. Poignant.
Lights flashed, images formed and disappeared, flying boundlessly across the back screen. Beautiful artwork merged with exquisite sounds, delicate and bold. Joy, sadness, passion poured out from the musicians, a tribute to humanity, a calling to mine.
The combination of superb musicians playing instruments from a wide variety of cultures, many played in different native scales, was itself interesting. The way the music was written and arranged, along with the perfect synchronization of each player with the others, made the sound come to life as none I have ever heard before. That’s not all. They rear projected a montage of pertinent and powerful visuals onto a full stage width screen behind the musicians and that strengthened the impact even more b
I recommend this concert wholeheartedly to anyone interested in World Arts.
SilkRoad Ensemble was absolutely the most joyful, engaging, enthralling, and spirit lifting musical performance I’ve experienced in many years! No recording or YouTube video can do them justice; they have to be experienced live, and there’s no better place to do that than the Schermerhorn Hall in Nashville, with its perfect acoustics. Their name says it all. You can close your eyes and imagine a night on the ancient silk road, where spice-traders, rug-traders, silk-traders, horse-traders and more are gathered around a fire at an ancient wayside inn, each with the instruments and influences from their native land, joining together in a glorious jam session for the ages. The closest thing I’ve ever experienced was the time I saw the entire SilkRoad Ensemble—with Yo-yo Ma performing at Carnegie Hall, following a week long workshop, in September of 2004. I invited four guests to join me in second row seats for this experience, and they all enjoyed it immensely. I confess that when I first saw how abbreviated this particular ensemble was (seven musicians) I was worried that this might not live up to the past experience I’d told my guests about, but the moment they began playing and filling up that wonderful hall with sound I knew we were all in for a treat! My only possible complaint is that the time went by just way too fast. I would love to see SilkRoad Ensemble make an annual return to Nashville. In fact, perhaps, twice a year. One “smaller” show such as this one, and one with the larger ensemble—with Yo-yo Ma. And I’ll be there for each and every performance!
My seat was very good and pretty roomy. The inside temp was comfortable. Had a most enjoyable evening.
This is the third time I've seen the Silkroad Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and they continue to blow me away. This time they had a Spanish bagpiper who rocked the house and really made the show new. I highly recommend seeing it!
I brought my 14 year old son and was not sure how he was going to enjoy the concert. But we were both blown away. The musicians were all incredibly talented and we would definitely see them again.
Going to a performance of the Silk Road Ensemble was on my bucket's list. The performance did not disappoint me and I was really grateful that I had a chance to see their performance. I could have paid for a ticket to see only one of these musicians. And I watched more than 10 world-class talents playing at the same time! I (unexpectedly) felt emotional and got tears in my eyes after listening to the Silent City. I could not explain why, guess that's the power of music.
Silk Road combines world music with classical music to create a moving, fascinating concert that showed what can be accomplished when difference is celebrated, not condemned