Risk, learning and sharing remain fundamental to the joy for both players and audiences of the Grammy winning ensemble Silkroad, who play Auckland Festival and Womad Taranaki this week.
Silk Road Ensemble Photo: https://www.aucklandfestival.co.nz/
“Whereas many ensembles are based in artistic excellence, risk isn’t necessarily one of their core values,” says Jeffrey Beecher, co-artistic director of the acclaimed, dynamic musical ensemble Silkroad.
“That’s what I love about Silkroad as an ensemble of artists: if we’re not risking it we’re not doing it right.”
Begun by cellist Yo-Yo Ma 20 years ago, and playing in New Zealand this week for the first time (at Auckland Festival and Womad), Silkroad bring together fine virtuoso musicians from across far-flung cultures and continents. Their repertoire stretches across traditional Vietnamese, Chinese and Kazakh music, Finnish folk song, Indian classical, and popular jazz, to name but a few. Silk Road continue to bring in new players and flavours. Audiences and musicians alike learn through exchange; stretched and energised by the bringing together of traditions of excellence.
Taking risks for Silkroad now comes under the pressure of increased attention. They won a 2017 Grammy for album Sing Me Home, released alongside popular 2016 documentary Company of Strangers. Jeffrey says that it's now about not getting too stretched and “threadbare” on the one hand, and not getting "stale and formulaic" on the other.
“We have to remind ourselves of the vision,” Jeffrey, who is also principal double bassist for the Toronto Symphony, told RNZ’s Eva Radich. “The purpose of Silkroad, whether it be on stage or in a classroom, is that when we have this generous spirit of artists making music together - who themselves are hoping for something beautiful in the art-making - the experience of the audience member is one where they come away and feel their own worlds have a little more hope in them.”
The musicians share a dedication to learning and curiosity, says Jeffrey. There’s almost, he says, the element of extreme sports about it.
“To push ourselves personally and collectively. So, in the times we get together - which feel infrequent compared to the desire we have - we make the most of those experiences and really lean into the scary bits!”
Sheer joy is something that comes through from seeing Silk Road in performance. It’s not only the delight and honour of being on stage with a group of all-stars, says Jeffrey, but also the humanity.
“To be on stage with a group of people who are delighting in things that are not familiar to them I think is another key factor and value of the group”
The Silkroad name remains totally apt. Diverse travellers meet on the road, don’t necessarily share a language but bring something to each other. There is a common feeling of barter.
“We actually meet on the road. We have an incredible Dutch singer Nora Fischer with us this tour and I only met Norah five days ago for the first time. Three days ago, we played a concert together. We are living out that reality, we don’t have a lot of lead time."
Silkroad was formed by Yo-Yo Ma in 1998 to bring together a “collective intelligence”. A few years later, while still in conservatory at the Julliard in New York, Jeffrey got the call to join a tour.
“I knew I had to find a way to continue to do Silkroad while maintaining a career in classical music as well."
Photo: Provided
All of the ensemble are busy virtuosi in their own rights. As well as being co-artistic director of Silkroad since late 2017 and being a key part of the Toronto Symphony, Jeffrey is also a composer and on the faculties of the Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory of Music and the University of Toronto.
Jeffrey plays one of the world's most prized Italian basses (a Giovanni Battista Rogeri from 1690) and even has a current Kiwi connection, recently programming a Gareth Farr piece for flute and marimba for the Toronto Symphony.
Silkroad features an incredible diversity of instruments but, quite naturally, Jeffrey considers the bass an important foundation. The other he says are the drums.
“I was a drummer before I was a bass player and one of the greatest phrases that sticks with me is that drums connect the world, we all have a beating heart. With the drums comes the reminder we all connect through that rhythm.
“We have an incredible bench of world class percussionists, and on this tour an Indian tabla virtuoso as well (Sandeep Das). So, as much as we’re switching through so many different genres, what gives us that real rhythmic foundation to stand on are our drummers, playing every kind of instrument."
From Indian tabla, to Galician bagpipes from the North West of Spain. Jeffrey says player Cristina Pato is “the Jimi Hendrix of the Galician bagpipes”, electrifying an austere tradition.
And of wind instruments Jeffrey highlights the playing of Wu Tong from Beijing. Firstly, on the reed instrument the sheng.
“If you can imagine a pipe organ in a concert hall shrunk down to handheld proportions… Wu Tong takes this harmonica on steroids and makes this incredibly soulful beautiful music.”
Wu Tong also plays the bawu, a wooden flute, which was one of the main court instruments of ancient China.
“The artful bawu player bends pitches with such sultry capacity you can’t help but put your hand at your chin and stare in repose at this incredible musician.
Improvisation, sharing and learning are key to Silkroad, both in rehearsal and in performance.
“There are musicians who come from a strictly oral tradition who, frankly, before Silkroad could not read music,” says Jeffrey. “So, for them their evolution has come from that deeply invested area of learning to share and teach that to the other musicians in Silkroad. Simultaneously for us ‘readers’, coming from Western classical myself… I’m stretching into improv.
“It’s not as if we’re all magnetised to the same development of where we need to go within our skill sets. Rather, the introduction of a new person in the universe, and the gravitational pull that they bring with those skills means the universe is always a bit expanding. We’re taking new artists into our system.”
