Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist. Born in Paris, France, 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 has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world. He has recorded more than 90 albums and received 18 Grammy Awards.
The kamancheh is a Persian bowed string instrument used in Persian, Azerbaijani, Armenian, and Kurdish music. The kamancheh is related to the rebab which is the historical ancestor of the kamancheh and the bowed Byzantine lyra. The strings are played with a variable-tension bow. It is widely used in the classical music of Iran, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kurdistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan with slight variations in the structure of the instrument.
Kayhan Kalhor is an Iranian-Kurdish kamancheh and setar player and vocalist from Iran, composer and master of classical Iranian traditional music.
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."
Bruce Adolphe is a composer, music scholar, the author of several books on music, and pianist. He is currently Resident Lecturer and Director of Family Concerts of the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center and founder and creative director of The Learning Maestros, formerly called PollyRhythm Productions. He also founded the nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational organization Artful Thinkers. Adolphe performs a weekly "Piano Puzzler" segment on the nationally broadcast Performance Today classical music radio program hosted by Fred Child. "Piano Puzzler" was on National Public Radio starting in 2002, and is now on American Public Media. The program is also available as a podcast and from iTunes. Mr. Adolphe is also artistic director of Off the Hook Arts Festival, an interdisciplinary festival combining music, science, and visual arts, based in Fort Collins, Colorado.
Shujaat Husain Khan (born 19 May 1960) is an Indian musician and sitar player of the Imdadkhani gharana. He has recorded over 60 albums and was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best World Music Album for his work with the band Ghazal with Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor. He also sings frequently. His style of sitar playing, known as gayaki ang, aims to imitate the human voice.
Aynur Doğan is a contemporary Kurdish singer and musician from Turkey. She was born in Çemişgezek, a small mountain town in Dersim Province in Turkey and fled to İstanbul in 1992. She studied saz and türkü singing in an influential music school in Istanbul, the Arif Sağ Müsik. In 2004 she released the album Keçe Kurdan on Kalan Müzik label. Keçe Kurdan was banned in 2005 due to the fact that two words in the song, Keçe (Girl) and Ceng (battle), according to a court in Diyarbakır, would encourage women to leave their partners, go to the mountains and hence the words promote division. The following year the ban was lifted. In 2005 she had a small role as herself in the movie Gönul Yarası. In 2012, following repeated threats by right-wing and anti-Kurdish militants, she relocated to Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Shadmehr Aghili is an Iranian pop singer, musician, composer, music arranger, producer and song-writer, and formerly an actor. He revitalized music culture post-revolution in Iran, Aghili was born in Tehran, Iran and later emigrated to Canada first, but currently resides in Los Angeles.
Espirito is the second album by Lawson Rollins. Rollins composed all of the music and co-produced the album with Persian-American musician and producer Shahin Shahida and multi-platinum producer Dominic Camardella. The cast of musicians includes the Grammy-nominated Brazilian singer Flora Purim, percussionist Airto Moreira, Iranian kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor, and Grammy winners Charlie Bisharat on violin as well as Cuban drummer Horacio Hernandez.
Brooklyn Rider is an American string quartet, based in Brooklyn, New York City, United States, whose members include violinists Johnny Gandelsman and Colin Jacobsen, violist Nicholas Cords and cellist Michael Nicolas. They are mainly known for playing unusual and contemporary repertoire, and for collaborating with musicians from outside the classical music sphere. The quartet has founded the Stillwater Music Festival in 2006 to serve as a place to unveil new repertory and collaborations; the festival's last concerts were held in 2015. Brooklyn Rider also spends time teaching, including past residencies at Denison University, Dartmouth College, Williams College, MacPhail Center for the Arts, Texas A&M University and University of North Carolina.
Sandeep Das is an Indian Tabla player and composer currently based in Boston, MA.
Caroline Elizabeth Polachek is an American singer and songwriter. Raised in Connecticut, Polachek co-founded the indie pop band Chairlift while studying at the University of Colorado. The duo emerged from the late-2000s Brooklyn music scene with the sleeper hit "Bruises".
The Wind is an album by Iranian Musician, Kayhan Kalhor, and Turkish folk Musician Erdal Erzincan that was released by ECM Records in 2006. It was their first collaborative album and The result is a set of instrumental compositions that flow into each other like one continuous work. Kalhor recorded The Wind in Istanbul at November 2004 and mixed it, together with ECM producer Manfred Eicher at Oslo's Rainbow Studio in 2006.
Scattering Stars Like Dust is a solo album by Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor, released on 9 June 1998 in the United States through Traditional Crossroads records.
Kula Kulluk Yakişir Mi is a live album by Turkish Musician Erdal Erzincan and Iranian Kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor, released through ECM Records on 27 August 2013 in the United States.
Masters of Persian Music is a Persian classical music ensemble founded in 2000 by four internationally recognized ustāds (masters) of the genre: vocalist Mohammad-Reza Shajarian; composer-musicians Hossein Alizâdeh and Kayhan Kalhor; and M. R. Shajarian's son, multi-instrumentalist singer Homayoun Shajarian.
Eric Jacobsen is an American conductor and cellist. He is currently a member of Brooklyn Rider, The Knights, and the Silk Road Project, and is the Music Director of the Orlando Philharmonic Orchestra and Virginia Symphony Orchestra, Principal Conductor of the Greater Bridgeport Symphony, and an artistic partner of the Northwest Sinfonietta.
Night, Silence, Desert is a collaborative album by Iranian musician Kayhan Kalhor with Mohammad Reza Shajarian and others, released on 12 September 2000 in the United States through Traditional Crossroads records.
The Rain is a 2003 album by the Persian-Indian hybrid ensemble Ghazal, comprising kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor vocalist and sitar player Shujaat Husain Khan, and tabla player Sandeep Das. The album was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Traditional World Music Album in 2004.
Maeve Gilchrist is a Scottish harpist and composer currently living in New York City. She is known for a combining traditional folk music, jazz, improvisation, and experimentation.
