The Silkroad Ensemble, conceived and led by Yo-Yo Ma for more than 25 years, is a rotating collective of dozens of musicians…not a single band but more a concept and now a nonprofit musical and educational foundation to promote “radical cultural collaboration.” Yo-Yo Ma passed the baton of artistic leadership to Rhiannon Giddens in July 2020, mid-pandemic, and this seven-stop Phoenix Rising tour was (more or less) her first with the ensemble. I hesitated for a while to get a ticket since I was already committed to a busy weekend, but ultimately decided that I wanted to see what Rhiannon Giddens was up to with Silkroad and show my support for wherever she was headed. I figured I would kick myself if I skipped the chance to see one of their only shows this year.
I’ve long thought Silkroad was a delightful concept and the music I’d heard was interesting but not something I listened to more than once. Many wonderful artists, including some of my favorites, have been associated with the ensemble; they’ve recorded 8 albums over the years but I don’t think I’ve listened to one all the way through nor had I sought out a concert.
Rhiannon Giddens, on the other hand, has become a force in music and my world over the past few years. I first saw her at Wolf Trap with the Carolina Chocolate Drops in 2011 and was drawn to the 2017 Celtic Colours Festival in Nova Scotia because she was playing there (though I couldn’t get into her sold out shows). I was enchanted by her 2019 Songs of Our Native Daughters and delighted when my sister fell under her spell as well. We’ve both reveled in the growth of each member of that group, especially Allison Russell in the past year. Rhiannon could easily be riding along on the wave of popular support for black women in Americana and Country music but instead embraced world music in the past few years with her partner, Francesco Turrisi. Silkroad was not an obvious step for her, but I can see its attraction. Rhiannon does not seem to be driven by a need for great fame or the allure of a pop star’s life. She seems to be striving to make a positive impact on American and world culture, reaching for a higher (and higherbrow?) plane with Silkroad, her recently debuted opera Omar, and her Carnegie Hall Perspectives series. (There’s yet another project, Lucy Negro Redux, a ballet work Rhiannon and Francesco scored last year that will air in September on PBS.) At one level I wish she would stick with her banjo and fiddle playing dive into American black musical history, but I applaud her apparent desire to grow beyond that. I’m willing to follow and see where she leads. So I showed up at Wolf Trap.
The show started promptly at 8pm with the 13 members of the ensemble settling in at their various instruments. With a little subtle bravura, Rhiannon started off with a hum, presumably in perfect pitch, to which the other instruments all tuned. The tuning turned into the opening chord and rhythm of “O Death” (here’s a 2021 performance). This dirge, made famous by Ralph Stanley, is not your normal cheery opening number but was a thematic statement for the show, especially the line “spare me over for another year.” It’s a jumping off point from the pandemic to our lives going forward.
Next came “The Call” by harpist Maeve Gilchrist, a long (10-15 minute?) piece that showed the entire ensemble to great effect, painting aural pictures that evoked Scotland, the Asian steppes, Japan and wherever your imagination took you. They moved on through “Ho-oh” featuring Japanese flute and drums, “Ascending Bird”, “Ekla Cholo Re” featuring tabla and Rhiannon singing in Bengali, “St. James Infirmary Blues” with Rhiannon singing while reclining (here’s a 2016 performance, Rhiannon’s first collaboration with Silkroad), “Sacred Cloud Music” featuring pipa, “New Ritual” featuring all the percussionists, and “Cut the Rug” with the whole ensemble closing the main show. Here’s the program for the show, with descriptions of each piece under “Program Notes.”
I didn’t know this evening’s ensemble members but they are worth noting: Jeffery Beecher (Bass), Sandeep Das (Tabla), Haruka Fujii (Percussion), Rhiannon Giddens (Banjo, Voice), Maeve Gilchrist (Celtic Harp), Mario Gotoh (Viola), Joseph Gramley (Percussion), Wu Man (Pipa), Karen Ouzounian (Cello), Mazz Swift (Violin, Voice), Francesco Turrisi (Accordion, Frame Drums), Kaoru Watanabe (Japanese Flute, Percussion), Reylon Yount (Yangqin). All of these players are all-stars on their instruments and have extensive careers beyond Silkroad. It’s not clear to me how often the ensemble really comes together which is why it tends to be a special event when they do. About half of these seem to be longtime Ensemble members and the rest seem to be new, or at least not listed on the Wikipedia list of members.
The main show was barely 75 minutes which seemed far too short. Rather than all shuffling off stage and back, the ensemble stayed for two encore songs. The first was a hauntingly beautiful version of “Biko”, Peter Gabriel’s 1980 song protesting the death of South African activist Steve Biko; I was unaware that several Silkroad members were involved in an excellent 2021 Playing for Change remake of the song. Violinist Mazz Swift opened her mouth for the first time and provided a wonderful complement to Rhiannon’s singing, suddenly pointing to exciting new potentials for Silkroad. Having a second strong voice opens more engaging and entertaining opportunities for the ensemble. The song’s signature verse provided the thematic summation for the show, “You can blow out a candle, but you can’t blow out a fire. Once the flames begin to catch, the wind will blow it higher.”
I didn’t recognize the final song, “Keep On Keeping On” but I imagine it’s been around for a long time. Rhiannon and Mazz turned it into a folksy audience participation number and a feel-good finish to a concert that was over too soon. Some clarification came a few days later from this NPR interview with Rhiannon: Mazz Swift wrote the song (and she’s a they, by the way). It’s a very deliberate audience participation number, community building in a literal sense for at least a few minutes. It should be a required campfire hit song in its own right. I found a YouTube clip from our show (here’s a maybe more official version from an earlier show, but I like our show’s version better).
If you came expecting a Rhiannon Giddens concert, you’d have been disappointed. She only sang four songs, not counting the one in Bengali, and hardly tapped her own depth as a writer, singer or player. She made several self-deprecating remarks about the members of the ensemble being patient with her crazy ideas; they seem to be still feeling each other out. The whole troupe had just come from the Newport Folk Festival where they performed on Friday and did some special appearances Saturday, including Rhiannon playing with Paul Simon on his reworked (for her) “American Tune” (YouTube) and the ensemble with Natalie Merchant and Adia Victoria (less impressive, I’m sorry to say), though they missed Joni Mitchell stealing the show on Sunday (with Brandi Carlile and Allison Russell, btw).
This Phoenix Rising concert and tour was something of a mission statement, playing pieces previously commissioned for Silkroad, written by several of the ensemble members. Silkroad has unveiled an ambitious multi-year project, American Railroad, that will be a hydra of recordings, films, books, performances and more. I’m eager to see it develop. For now, I need to decide how much of a fanboy I want to be and whether to try to see the Songs of Our Native Daughters (first and only?) reunion concert at Carnegie Hall on November 4. Tickets go on sale August 22.
