The Silkroad Ensemble’s latest flagship program with Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens is Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual. In this program, Rhiannon and the Ensemble explore how we can experience music to better understand our world, find comfort, process loss and a changing environment, and rebuild community based on our own humanity. Historically, when we have found ourselves in a time of conflict or stress, we have always turned to music—for example, many of us held on to our sanity during the long months of the pandemic with songs, sounds, and stories.

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The idea of trance, something that can bring us to a deep peace that is hard to find in modern society, is profoundly tied to the communal music-making traditions found in many different cultures, from Morocco to India to Ireland, and is a way in which we can build a stronger human connection amidst all the noise. In Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual, the musicians will delve deeply into one another’s music and traditions, such as Sicilian tarantella with Mauro Durante and Francesco Turrisi, Moroccan Gnawa with Mehdi Nassouli, Indian Classical music with Sandeep Das, American old-time with Rhiannon Giddens, and more, and invite audiences to join them as partners and participants in the performance, instead of solely as passive bystanders.

For the first time ever, special guests Mehdi Nassouli and Mauro Durante will join the Silkroad Ensemble for this program.

FEATURING:

• Rhiannon Giddens, banjo, voice
• Shawn Conley, bass
• Layale Chaker, violin
• Sandeep Das, tabla
• Haruka Fujii, marimba, percussion
• Maeve Gilchrist, harp
• Karen Ouzounian, cello
• Mazz Swift, violin, voice
• Niwel Tsumbu, guitar
• Francesco Turrisi, frame drums, accordion
• Kaoru Watanabe, Japanese flutes and percussion
• Mauro Durante, percussion*
• Mehdi Nassouli, guembri*