Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist. Born and partially raised in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. He graduated from the Juilliard School and Harvard University and attended Columbia University and has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world. He has recorded more than 90 albums and received 19 Grammy Awards.
David Frost is an American classical record producer and pianist. He has won 22 Grammy Awards for his work including seven wins for Producer of the Year, Classical. He is a music producer for the Metropolitan Opera and has recorded major orchestras including the New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Kayhan Kalhor is an Iranian-Kurdish kamancheh and setar player and vocal composer. He has received three Grammy Award for Best Traditional World Music Album nominations. Kalhor also has earned two nominations and won one Grammy Award for Best Global Music Album as a member of the Silk Road Ensemble.
Wu Man is a Chinese pipa player and composer. Trained in Pudong-style pipa performance at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, she is known for playing in a broad range of musical styles and introducing the pipa and its Chinese heritage into Western genres. She has performed and recorded extensively with Kronos Quartet and Silk Road Ensemble, and has premiered works by Philip Glass, Lou Harrison, Terry Riley, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun, Zhao Jiping, and Zhou Long, among many others. She has recorded and appeared on over 40 albums, five of which have been nominated for Grammy Awards. In 2013, she was named Instrumentalist of the Year by Musical America, becoming the first performer of a non-Western instrument to receive this award. She also received The United States Artists Award in 2008.
Mason Gross School of the Arts is the arts conservatory at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey. It is named for Mason W. Gross, the sixteenth president of Rutgers. Mason Gross offers the Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance, Theater, Digital Filmmaking, and Visual Arts, Bachelor of Music, Master of Fine Arts in Theater and Visual Arts, Master of Education in Dance, Master of Music, Doctor of Musical Arts, Artist Diploma in Music, and MA and Ph.D. in composition, theory, and musicology. Mason Gross recently introduced a new program in the Visual Arts that offers a Bachelor of Design.
Silkroad, formerly the Silk Road Project, Inc., is a not-for-profit organization, initiated by the cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, promoting collaboration among artists and institutions, promoting multicultural artistic exchange, and studying the ebb and flow of ideas. The project was first inspired by the cultural traditions of the historical Eurasian Silk Road trade routes and now encompasses a number of artistic, cultural and educational programs focused on connecting people and ideas from around the world. It has been described as an "arts and educational organization that connects musicians, composers, artists and audiences around the world" and "an initiative to promote multicultural artistic collaboration."
Gulnara Mashurova was born in Almaty, Kazakhstan. She started piano studies at the age of 6 and by age 9 was chosen to study harp at the Pre Moscow Conservatory with Natalia Sibor. From 1991–93 she studied with Vera Dulova at the Moscow Conservatory. ashurova received a bachelor's and master's degree in harp performance from the Juilliard School as a Jerome Green full scholarship recipient studying under Nancy Allen, Principal Harpist of the New York Philharmonic. She received her second Masters in Orchestra Performance with a full scholarship from the Manhattan School of Music studying under Deborah Hoffman, Principal Harpist of the Metropolitan Opera Orchestra.
Joel Fan is an American pianist and Steinway Artist "who has won praise for his technical expertise, lyrical playing, and outstanding interpretation". The New York Times has described Joel Fan as an "impressive pianist" with a "probing intellect and vivid imagination." "Fan has a flourishing international career as a performing and recording artist, notable for his fluency in the standard repertoire and contemporary works." Consistently acclaimed for his recitals and appearances with orchestras, Mr. Fan scored two consecutive Billboard Top 10 Debuts with his solo CDs World Keys and West of the Sun, while Dances for Piano and Orchestra earned a Grammy nomination.
Falu is an American singer whose music blends ancient classical Indian melodies with contemporary western sounds. In her burgeoning U.S.-based career, she has worked and collaborated with a wide array of artists including A.R. Rahman, Yo-Yo Ma, Philip Glass, Wyclef Jean, her teacher Ustad Sultan Khan, Blues Traveler, Ricky Martin and Bernie Worrell. In 2022, she won the Grammy Award for Best Children's Album for her album A Colorful World.
Damian Woetzel is an American choreographer.
Octavio Vázquez Rodríguez is a Galician-American New York-based composer of classical music.
Songs of Joy and Peace is a Christmas music album by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, released on October 14, 2008. The album won the 2010 Grammy Award for Best Classical Crossover Album. It features collaborations with many other artists, including vocalists Diana Krall & Alison Krauss, bassist John Clayton, pianist Dave Brubeck, cellist Matt Brubeck, clarinetist Paquito D'Rivera, trumpeter Chris Botti, pianist Billy Childs, bassist Robert Hurst, drummer Billy Kilson, and guitarist Romero Lubambo, bassist Edgar Meyer, bassist Nilson Matta, mandolinist Chris Thile, vocalist Renée Fleming, Celtic fiddler Natalie MacMaster, harpist Marta Cook, saxophonist Joshua Redman, piper Cristina Pato, vocalist James Taylor, the Assad Family, ukulele virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro, and Wu Tong & the Silk Road Ensemble.
Robert Livingstone Aldridge is an American composer, professor, and current Head of Composition professor, and former Director of Music at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. He has written over eighty works for orchestra, opera, musical theater, dance, and various chamber ensembles that have been performed in the United States, Europe, and Japan. He is widely known for his opera Elmer Gantry, based on Sinclair Lewis's 1927 novel of the same name. which was completed in 2007 and won Best Engineered Album (Classical) and Best Contemporary Classical Composition in the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.
Joseph Gramley is an American multi-percussionist, teacher and composer, and a founding member of the Silk Road Ensemble. As a solo performer he each year commissions and premieres new works from such emerging composers as Kojiro Umezaki and Justin Messina. His first solo recording, American Deconstruction, featuring performances of five milestone works in multi-percussion's modern repertoire, appeared in 2000 and was reissued in 2006. His second CD, Global Percussion, was released in 2005.
Sandeep Das is an Indian tabla player and composer currently based in Boston, Massachusetts, United States.
Christine Southworth is an American composer of postminimal music and works with combinations of Western ensembles, electronics, and world music ensembles including Balinese gamelan and bagpipes. She performs Balinese gamelan and gender wayang with Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Gamelan Galak Tika, as well as Galician Gaita and Great Highland Bagpipes. She co-founded Ensemble Robot, a cooperative of engineers, artists and musicians working together to invent robotic musical instruments. She was also the general manager of Gamelan Galak Tika from 2004 through 2013. Her own music incorporates her work with Balinese gamelan and with technology and electronics, as well as reaching beyond these influences with an expanded palette of contemporary classical, jazz and rock, and world music from Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.
Camille Zamora is an American soprano recognized for her performance of opera, zarzuela, oratorio, art song and American songbook. She performs repertoire ranging from the early Baroque to 21st century premieres by composers including Grammy Award winners Robert Aldridge and Herschel Garfein as well as Prix de Rome winner Christopher Theofanidis.
Allison Brewster Franzetti is an American pianist and music educator, originally from New York City. She received a Bachelor of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music, a Master of Music degree from the Juilliard School, and a Doctorate in Musical Arts from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University.
Estelí Gomez is a multiple Grammy Award winning musician from Watsonville, California.
John Hadfield is an American jazz drummer, composer, and percussionist.
