Hill Auditorium
Silkroad Ensemble with
Rhiannon Giddens
American Railroad
$15-20 student tickets available
“I hope audiences will leave with a clearer sense of where we come from, how we got here, what it cost us — and that we collectively reflect on where we’re headed.”
— Rhiannon Giddens
After the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, a trip from coast to coast that used to take months was shortened to just under a week, allowing for the transport of goods and ideas across the continent in ways that were previously inconceivable. Profit-seeking corporations and the American government financed it, but the people who actually built it and were most affected by it — Indigenous and African Americans, as well as Irish, Chinese, Japanese, and other immigrant laborers whose contributions have been largely erased from history — are the focus of this program of music.
Silkroad’s American Railroad seeks to right these past wrongs by illuminating the impact of the Transcontinental Railroad and westward expansion on the communities it displaced and those who labored to build it, painting a more accurate picture of the global diasporic origin of the American Empire. The tour program includes new commissions by jazz artist Cécile McLorin Salvant and Silkroad artist and renowned pipa player Wu Man, as well as new arrangements by Rhiannon Giddens and other Silkroad musicians.
Thank You to Our Sponsors
PRESENTING SPONSOR
- Elaine and Peter Schweitzer
SUPPORTING SPONSOR
- Ellie Serras
PATRON SPONSOR
- Ken and Penny Fischer
MEDIA PARTNERS
Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998 as a reminder that even as rapid globalization resulted in division, it brought extraordinary possibilities for working together. Seeking to understand this dynamic, he recognized the historical Silk Road as a model for cultural collaboration — for the exchange of ideas, tradition, and innovation across borders. In an innovative experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a new artistic idiom: a musical language founded in difference, a metaphor for the benefits of a more connected world.
This initial gathering of artists was rooted in a simple, initial question: “What happens when strangers meet?” And thus Silkroad was born, as both a touring ensemble comprised of world-class musicians from all over the globe and a social impact organization working to make a positive impact across borders through the arts.
Today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens, Silkroad creates music that engages difference, sparking cultural collaboration and high-quality arts education to help build a more hopeful and inclusive world.
Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable. A two-time GRAMMY Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning singer and instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased, and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art.
As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration”—a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling her “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.”