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Yo-Yo Ma brings year-long Silk Roads festival to Chicago
2006-05-02
Renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma has partnered with more than 70 cultural institutions to bring a year-long festival to Chicago exploring the music, art and history of Asia and the Middle East through his Silk Roads project. The festival aims to celebrate the diversity of the residents of Chicago and help people to deepen their understanding of other cultures, said at a press conference Tuesday. "When we enlarge our view of the world, we deepen our understanding of our own lives," Ma said. "The Silk Road project hopes to plant the seed of new cultural growth and to celebrate traditions and musical voices everywhere. "The Silk Road is far more than a historic trading route that connected the people and traditions of Asia with Europe," Ma said. It was a place where strangers met. Where cultures were transformed through exchanges of ideas, music, art and tradition. "When we talk about a Silk Road experience we don't mean a caravan traveling across the desert, but something much, much more," Ma said. "It's about getting people to dream and to reimagine something they know or to discover something new." The festival will kick off on June 26 with a free performance by Ma and his Silk Roads Ensemble. In September the Art Institute of Chicago will mount a major exhibit linked to the project and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra will present the first of 50 concerts with a Silk Road theme. A full schedule and further details are available at http://www.silkroadchicago.org.
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