WORLD PREMIERE OF YO-YO MA AND SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE
INTRODUCES AGA KHAN MUSIC INITIATIVE IN CENTRAL
ASIA
Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival
hosts Silk Road Project Concerts debut
Wotersen,
Germany, 25 August 2001 -- At the first of a
hallmark series of festivals to be held in Asia,
Europe and North America, the renowned American
cellist Yo-Yo Ma led a distinguished international
group of musicians, artists and scholars from the
Silk Road Project last night in introducing European
audiences to a major element of the Aga Khan Music
Initiative in Central Asia, a multi-year project
to foster the revitalisation of traditional music
in Central Asia.
Yo-Yo
Ma and members of the Silk Road Ensemble are performing
specially commissioned pieces, traditional works
from Silk Road countries and Western music influenced
by Eastern traditions. Featuring compositions from
Azerbaijan, Iran, Japan, China, Mongolia and Uzbekistan,
the Concert programme includes performances of traditional
instruments as varied as the morin khuur, a Mongolian
two-stringed fiddle and the sheng, a 3,000 year-old
traditional wind instrument from China..
Explaining
the purpose of the Music Initiative, Prince Amyn
Aga Khan, brother of His Highness the Aga Khan and
a Director of the Silk Road Project, said "we
want to revive, sustain the new, and make accessible
to the wider world the many and varied forms of
traditional musical expression to be found along
the old Silk Routes." "Our hope,"
he continued, "is that the performances of
Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, and especially
of the pieces specially composed for the Silk Road
Project--which are, of course, contemporary but
steeped in local tradition--will give audiences
here in Europe, and elsewhere, a first true glimpse
of the diversity of these traditions, but also of
their commonality. These compositions also highlight
(as was the case centuries ago) the value today
of exchanges among and between peoples and cultures."
"When
strangers meet" and "an exploration of
the inner life" were among the characterisations
that Yo-Yo Ma used to describe the vastness of the
Silk Road Project, which he sees as an attempt "to
bring new ideas, talent and energy into the world
of classical music, and at the same time, nurture
musical creativity drawing on wonderfully diverse
and distinguished sources of cultural heritage around
the world."
With
its Music Initiative in Central Asia, the Aga Khan
Trust for Culture, the lead funder and creative
partner of the Silk Road Project, seeks to preserve
and revive the traditional music of Central Asia
and enhance its role by providing financial resources,
technical assistance and organizational support
directly to individuals and organizations in the
region. Presenting, teaching, documenting and archiving
traditional arts, preparing educational materials
on music and poetry, supporting publications, recordings,
broadcast and televised transmission - all of these
aspects are part of the Music Initiative's aim of
creating a unique repository of musical knowledge
and performance. Among its beneficiaries will be
the newly established University of Central Asia,
which was created by an international treaty signed
among the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and
the Kyrgyz Republic and the Aga Khan.
In
partnership with the Aga Khan Trust for Culture,
the Silk Road Project will expand its public programming
and outreach initiatives to the core lands of the
Silk Road - the region of Central Asia. A series
of concerts and festivals in several nations will
feature Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble together
with outstanding local performers of both Western
and Eastern music. An inaugural concert tour will
start in Kazakhstan and Tajikistan in October 2001,
with longer tours to follow in 2003 and thereafter.
Within the ambit of the Aga Khan Music Initiative
for Central Asia, a key component of the tours will
be workshops and master classes that will permit
unique interaction between musicians and students
in these countries and the composers, musicians
and scholars who form part of the Silk Road Project.
Concerts
and festivals are also planned for several cities
in Europe and North America during 2002. The Aga
Khan Trust for Culture and the Silk Road Project
will work together with the Smithsonian Institution
(the national museum of the United States) to prepare
the culmination of the current series of concerts
at the Smithsonian's annual Folklife Festival in
2002, which will be entirely devoted to the theme
of the Silk Road.
For
more information, see Music Initiative pages
*
* *
The
Silk Road Project aims to illuminate the Silk Road's
historical contribution to the cross-cultural diffusion
of arts, technologies, and musical traditions, identify
the voices that best represent its cultural legacy
today, and support innovative collaborations among
outstanding artists from the lands of the Silk Road
and the West.
The
Aga Khan Trust for Culture, established in 1988
in Geneva, Switzerland, is a private, non-denominational,
philanthropic foundation that focuses on cultural
revitalisation as a means to promote physical, social
and economic well being in countries where Muslims
have a significant presence. In addition to the
programmes noted above, the Trust administers: the
Aga Khan Award for Architecture, the world's largest
architectural prize; the Historic Cities Support
Programme concerned with the conservation and re-use
of buildings and spaces in historic cities through
projects in Bosnia, Egypt, Pakistan, Spain, Syria,
Uzbekistan and Zanzibar; support for the Aga Khan
Programme in Islamic Architecture at Harvard University
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT);
in collaboration with MIT, ArchNet, an interactive
global Internet-based network that links architects,
planners and universities around the world.
The
Trust is part of the Aga Khan Development Network,
a family of institutions created by His Highness
the Aga Khan, 49th hereditary Imam (spiritual leader)
of the Ismaili Muslims. The Network brings together
agencies and institutions working to improve living
conditions and opportunities in specific regions
of the developing world, especially in Asia and
Africa. Since 1993, the Network has launched a number
of successful initiatives in Central Asia in areas
ranging from agrarian reform to education, infrastructure,
healthcare, micro-credit, small enterprise development
and cultural revitalisation.
For
further information, please contact:
The
Aga Khan Trust for Culture
1-3 Avenue de la Paix
1211 Geneva 2,
Switzerland
Telephone:
(41.22) 909.7200
Fax: (41.22) 909.7292
E-mail: aktc@akdn.ch
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