On the Silk Road with Yo-Yo Ma
Cellist's New Album Serves Up a Eurasian Musical Stew

Listen to Scott Simon's conversation with Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma in NPR's Studio 4A. Photo: Nerissa Paglinauan, NPR

Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble perform for an upcoming installment of NPR's Performance Today "Mido Mountain" From the album Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet "Michio Mamiya: Five Finnish Folk Songs (No. 3)" "Avaz-e Dashti (Persian Traditional)" "Kayhan Kalhor: Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur"

May 25, 2002 -- One of the many instruments played on Yo-Yo Ma's latest album, Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet, is the Mongolian morin khuur, also called the "horse-head fiddle." The bowed instrument has two strings and, often, features a carving of a horse's head at the top of the neck.

Ma, world-renowned cellist, had a hard time with it. "I can assure you, having fewer strings doesn't make it twice as easy," he tells Scott Simon for Weekend Edition Saturday. The album is part of the Silk Road Project, a series of undertakings celebrating the mixed musical culture of the ancient trade route.

Around 1500, travelers on the Silk Road could often be found with the morin khuur, which Ma says was a "nomadic instrument." Nomadic, but not alone. The Silk Road, which joined East and West not only for trade, but also as a cultural link, was filled with song.

Ma said he made this album featuring music inspired by this ancient route for thoroughly modern reasons. "Every time I open a newspaper, I am reminded that we live in a world where we can no longer afford not to know our neighbors," he was recently quoted as saying. "The Silk Road Project is a musical way to get to know your neighbors."

It's also a way to bring together people with entirely different musical sensibilities. Ma tells of a recording session for Silk Road where the group needed to redo part of a 20-minute-long piece, but they had only five minutes to finish. "Let's start from measure 74," Ma called out. But Sandeep Das, the Indian tabla player, had trouble with that. "You know, I don't use music," Das told his cohorts. "I can only know this piece if you play through the whole thing."

"So there's a cultural moment," says Ma. "You have to go through the whole thing -- but then he knows it cold." Ma says working with these musicians -- from Iran, India, China, the Mediterranean and from outside the Silk Road territory -- gave him "a deeper way of being in the moment."


Other Resources

The Silk Road Project.

The Silk Road Foundation is a good place to learn about the ancient route.

E-mail this Page

 

Recipient's e-mail address:	» Up to twelve addresses, separated by commas.
Your e-mail address:
Your name:
Personal message (optional, 600 characters max):
Your NPR member station:	» List of local stations (PDF)
Are you a member of your local NPR station?	Yes    No
Would you like to receive information from your local NPR member station? (see NPR's privacy policy)	Yes    No
May we contact you with information about NPR programming and services? (see NPR's privacy policy)	Yes    No
(Information collected by NPR will be used solely for internal NPR or NPR member station purposes and only if you selected 'yes' above. See NPR's privacy policy for more information.)