When Wei Yang and Betty Xiang left Shanghai for the U.S. in 1996, they couldn’t wait to collaborate with Western musicians. Members of the prestigious Shanghai National Orchestra since the early 80s–Yang on the lutelike pipa and Xiang on a two-stringed relative of the violin called the erhu–the husband and wife were tired of a repertoire limited to traditional classical Chinese music. While touring Europe and southeast Asia in the early 90s they’d met Western classical musicians and heard a wider range of music, and the experience had given them ideas.
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But when Yang and Xiang play at Symphony Hall this weekend they won’t be performing only the Western compositions that lured them overseas, but music from across Asia–traditional Chinese and Mongolian songs as well as newly commissioned pieces from Iran and Azerbaijan. They’ll appear with the Silk Road Ensemble, part of an ambitious project launched in 1998 by celebrated cellist Yo-Yo Ma to explore the traditions of the countries along the Silk Road, an ancient trade route stretching from China to the Mediterranean along which different musical styles were brought into contact. So far the project has been a success: the Western elements of the ensemble’s music make the work accessible to a large audience–and Ma has the star power to bring in the masses.
While the ensemble is the public face of the Silk Road Project, Ma’s organization also sponsors activities designed to connect various museums, arts organizations, composers, and musicians from around the world. There’s also an educational component: in conjunction with the ensemble’s residency at Symphony Center this week there has been a series of gallery walks at the Art Institute as well as lectures and performances related to the music and art of the Silk Road countries. And in addition to the ensemble’s debut, Silk Road Journeys (on which Yang performed), the project has also released The Silk Road: A Musical Caravan (Smithsonian Folkways), a two-disc set of ethnomusicological recordings.
The project has also allowed them to share their traditional music with other musicians and audiences. “China has a very rich culture, [but] it’s only known to the Chinese community. Our ambition has been to share some of our culture with the West. Since the Silk Road Project approached us, we’ve done that–this is what we really wanted.”
