All Silk Roads Lead to Harvard

No one walking into Sanders Theater last Thursday night for the Silk Road Ensemble’s sold-out performance knew exactly what to expect—performers and audience alike.

The Ensemble members, including Silk Road founder Yo-Yo Ma ’76, were playing with five Harvard students they had met only days earlier. An Armenian artist drew improvised images to accompany the music and projected them onto a huge screen. Few, if any, of the listeners had ever heard a song with string parts for a traditional Persian kamancheh.

But according to one audience member, Frank L. Washburn ’08, the group’s final piece, “Night at the Caravanserai,” took those feelings of uncertain excitement to an ecstatic level. There were “at least 10 false climaxes,” he says, before a finale that “elicited gasps of surprise and smatterings of applause.”

The entire performance was a kind of false climax, however thrilling the audience may have found it. Although the Silk Road players have since packed up their neys, santurs, and violins to leave for Japan, the Silk Road Project (SRP) has only just begun its five-year residency at Harvard, one that may lead to the development of a new Core course—and a serious reevaluation of the way the university addresses multi-cultural and interdisciplinary studies.

For both Harvard and the SRP, this residency has little precedent and a challenging amorphous but larval mandate. But therein lies enormous potential to invigorate the musical, cultural, curricular and extra-curricular worlds of Harvard.

STARTING POINTS

In a way, the origins of the concept behind the Project lie right here at Harvard College. Ma wrote in an e-mail, “Through being at Harvard I realized how incomplete my education was, and that for the rest of my life, I would be encountering worlds I didn’t know how to deal with. Harvard taught me how to deal with new knowledge and how to ally myself with people who know things I don’t.”

In 1998, after having attained world fame as a concert cellist, Ma put that awareness into practice by establishing the Silk Road Project. Funded by private donors, the group, as their artistic mission statement puts it, “acts as an umbrella organization and common resource for a number of artistic, cultural and educational programs,” focus on the Silk Road of antiquity.

It’s an ambitious ideology, considering the scope of the titular Silk Road. The term is shorthand for an intricate system of trade routes that stretched from Japan to the Mediterranean, with stops throughout Central Asia and the Middle East, from roughly 1600 B.C.E. until 8th century C.E.

Along its pathways, merchants freely exchanged both goods and ideas. In terms of its importance to world culture, Folger Fund Professor of History and East Asian historian Andrew D. Gordon ’74 says the development of the Silk Road was a critical cultural landmark: “The Crusades, the Black Plague, the Renaissance—it ranks right up there with all of them.”

To honor the Silk Road’s legacy of fusion among Eastern and Western cultures, Ma and a rotating group of musicians from around the world play traditional and original music in concert and host educational events. They’ve recorded three albums and traveled from Manhattan to Kyrgyzstan. But according to SRP Chief Executive Officer Laura Freid, the organization agreed last year on the need to “look for a new intellectual home”

“The musicians were interested in participating in university courses, conducting workshops, master classes and giving public performances,” says Freid. “We were all interested in exploring the Silk Road from an art history, ethnomusicology, language, and civilization perspective.”

Harvard was an obvious choice—not only is Ma a graduate, but so is SRP Executive Board member Judith A. Goldberg , who graduated from Harvard’s Graduate School of Education in 1991. Freid, too, has a connection; she’s a former editor of Harvard Magazine.

Last spring, the SRP held a brief residency at the Rhode Island School of Design, but had an even bigger plan in the works for Harvard.

After talks with various Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) officials, the SRP and FAS issued a joint press release on March 30 announcing that the Silk Road Project would be in residency at Harvard from the fall of 2005 until the fall of 2010. The initiative would include various performances and projects at Harvard during that period.

At the time, FAS had its own reasons to be interested in a group like Silk Road—the ongoing Harvard College Curricular Review had been, and still is, debating the future of interdisciplinary and international study at the College. Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby, who has long been a proponent of international study in the new curriculum, said in the March press release that the residency had come “at just the right moment.”

The dates of the first stage of the residency were set for September 26 to October 1, but little else was set in stone. The press release announced a determination to “cooperate on the development of new interdisciplinary curricula in the arts, literature, history, and music of the Silk Road regions.” Such a program was markedly more open-ended and potentially all-encompassing than previous artistic residencies, such as that of the Ying String Quartet, which has held residency at Harvard since 2001.

Jack Megan, head of the Office for the Arts at Harvard (OFA), says that the SRP’s residency “is one of the most significant” in Harvard history, and that it differs from most residencies in that “there will be many types of engagement over an extended period of time.”

In addition, as Dean for the Humanities and Loeb Professor of Germanic Languages and Literatures Maria Tatar puts it, “This is really an FAS initiative, not a departmental one.” The SRP, according to the press statement, was explicitly interested in taking “the scope of audience participation beyond the mainstream concert tour format” and delving deeper into Harvard culture.

Taken as a whole, all of these statements and mandates leave the door open for the SRP to become a rare campus presence: one that interacts with multiple departments, attempts to examine thousands of years of history and culture, and traverses the boundary between the curricular and the extra-curricular.

But what will the residency actually, concretely do? Although the Harvard community got an exciting glimpse last week, the question remains open.

HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS

By the time the nine performers of the Ensemble arrived in Cambridge last week, a packed schedule had been planned. But as the events of the week would show, there was still plenty of room for improvisation.

The first major event was a Tuesday morning visit to Watts Professor of Music and member of the Committee on Ethnic Studies Kay K. Shelemay’s course, Literature and Arts B-78, “Soundscapes: Exploring Music in a Changing World.” Shelemay, an ethnomusicologist, wrote about the SRP in her book, “Soundscapes” and has been a vigorous supporter of the residency ever since it was proposed.

According to Shelemay, the Ensemble played for the class, had brunch with the students, and discussed the Silk Road. “Our theme this semester is music and mobility,” Shelemay says, “and [the Silk Road] is the perfect case study.”

Student response was enthusiastic. “What surprised me was the level of improvisation” says Rebecca A. Gong ’08. “It was just amazing…it was almost as if they were dancing onstage while performing.”

Next on the docket was an “Arts Leaders Luncheon,” hosted by the Office for the Arts (OFA) and held at the Faculty Club. The OFA invited a laundry list of extracurricular artistic organizations to attend, from the Hasty Pudding Theatricals to Christian a cappella group Under Construction. Ma gave an opening address, and a member of the SRP was seated at each table.

Eva M. Luo ’08, captain of the Harvard Asian-American Dance Troupe, who was seated with the SRP’s Programs Coordinator, found the organization’s attempts at fusion between past and present inspiring. “Maybe this is far-fetched,” says Luo, “but we’d really like to dance to some of their music.” However, she adds that she “didn’t get a chance to find out to what extent that would be possible.”

Throughout the week, the OFA held multiple “Learning from Performers” events with the Ensemble at Paine Hall.

On Monday evening, the Ensemble began one of the most interactive aspects of its week: actual performance with students. The OFA invited dozens of student musicians to play with the Ensemble in two “reading sessions” of original music by Persian ensemble member Kayhan Kalhor.

Nick Cords, a violist from the ensemble, says that these sessions were a highlight for him. “In just spending ten minutes on those things, it was amazing how much [the students] were able to make the piece their own,” he says. “The rhythm, for instance, is something that everyone feels in a slightly different way.”

At the sessions, the ensemble was also looking for new talent. Five musicians were selected to rehearse with the group and play with them at the Thursday night concert. One such musician was cellist Bong I. Koh ’08, who found the experience thrilling, especially due to Ma’s constant presence.

“Mr. Ma attended every rehearsal—I wasn’t expecting that,” says Koh, “Obviously, he had a lot of things to do, along with the Silk Road Project, but being in that situation, you couldn’t tell that he was under so much stress—he was really enjoying rehearsals!”

Koh also emphasizes the excitement he felt at being able to study non-Western music. Much of the music being played was on a 12-tone scale, which differs from the typical Western, eight-tone, “do-re-mi” scale. Some notes are added, some omitted. But no matter where in the world musicians come from, Koh feels that they are taught primarily Western styles.

“I don’t think Harvard lacks the resources [for the study of Eastern musical traditions],” says Koh, “but I think we lack the participation of students who should be interested in Eastern music…Harvard students are familiar with the fact that those two worlds exist, but don’t know how to link them. The Silk Road Ensemble will definitely be a link.”

In a very concrete way, the ensemble will be acting as a link between the past and present for students in. Knafel Professor of Music Thomas Kelly’s popular Core class, Literature and Arts B-51, “First Nights.” The course focuses on the history of a handful of famous musical premieres, and each year, Kelly asks a professional composer to select musicians and debut a brand new piece in December, allowing the students to experience something like what they’ve studied.

This year, the composer is Kalhor, who will be collaborating with the Ensemble to create a work entitled “Silent City.” Kelly says he looks forward both to the fact that the piece will incorporate non-Western modes, and that the group will appear before the class twice as often as the performing groups usually do during the semester. “This year, I think, will be particularly exciting,” says Kelly.

A slightly chillier response initially greeted the ensemble on Wednesday night, when a “jam session” was held in Cabot House. Students from across the campus were invited to come and play with the members of the ensemble, and although Yo-Yo Ma was present, he didn’t play with the group.

“They never explicitly told me Yo-Yo was going to play, but I thought it was a reasonable assumption to make,” says Cabot House Master Jay Harris. But any mumblings of disappointment were soon swept away by the music and the spirit of improvisation. As Julia I. Bertelsmann ’09 put it, “When you’re playing with people doing such amazing things with their instruments, it makes you feel freer with your own.”

OFA Director Jack Megan feels Ma’s decision not to play was, very likely, a part of the cellist’s general vision for the residency. “Yo-Yo does not want it to be about Yo-Yo,” says Megan. “His desire is to make sure that the actual Silk Road work comes first.”

In this, the first stage of the residency, that appeared to be a success. The enthusiasm of the crowd during its culmination at Sanders was unmistakeable. But what the residency will mean for the future of Harvard is still up for debate.

MISTY HORIZONS

One intriguing step is the possible creation of a new class in the Core Curriculum that would focus on the Silk Road. Schwartz Professor of Chinese and Inner Asian History Mark C. Elliott, co-teacher of Historical Studies A-13 “China: Traditions and Transformations,” has said that he and Shelemay want to lead such a course together.

“Ideally, it will involve art history…as well as the politics, the actual trade, the commerce that went on, and the civilizational circles that cross and re-cross,” says Elliott. Shelemay has confirmed this intention and says the two of them are in the early stages of preparing a proposal for the course.

But Gordon thinks the Silk Road residency is coming at a time when the shifting nature of the Core Curriculum may put the values of the Project at stake for the community at large: “The new curriculum is not likely to have a requirement like Foreign Cultures, nor a Historical Studies requirement per se…so a program like this is great.”

He cautions, however, that really making the SRP a part of the curriculum may be a challenge.

“Practically, there’s got to be the people on the faculty who are willing to make it happen,” he said.

Tatar has put together a board of six faculty advisors, including Kelly and Shelemay, dedicated to meeting in the near future to discuss exactly how the residency will be conducted. There are some prospects for a textile exhibit at the Fogg Museum, and possible involvement with the Department of the History of Art and Architecture, but these ideas have yet to fully materialize.

“I think the great thing about this project is that we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen,” says Tatar. “There’s room for improvisation and experimentation.” She says she will meet with the advisory board in the near future to discuss ways for students to help guide the process.

The SRP does have an administrative office at the Wadsworth House in the Yard, and students are free to offer advice by visiting the SRP’s website or e-mailing the board. But Freid foresees some difficulties amidst the excitement of improvised input. “In a decentralized university, it’s hard to get the word out,” she says.

One student, Laurence H.S. Coderre ’07, a joint Music and East Asian Studies concentrator, is somewhat cynical about the residency. “While I am still very much a fan of the residency,” she says, “I do not think that it will remedy the lack of instruction of East Asian music in the department.”

Shelemay, a former head of the Music Department, has a different characterization of the situation. “I think [the residency] surely takes us a distance towards establishing these sorts of courses [in non-Western music].”

Megan, of the OFA, agrees. “I think there’s been a real progression towards non-Classical and non-Western forms on campus,” he says. “It’s not so much that anything was missing; it’s that we’ve been given an opportunity.”

Yo-Yo Ma writes that the journey, however uncertain, is going to be made rich, not so much by the Ensemble, but by what Harvard students can offer up. “From the sight-reading abilities of the students who came to the [reading sessions], 95% of whom were not music majors, to the great questions and comments we got from students in the classes, to the amazing enthusiasm and energy of the jam session, everywhere we went we could feel the intelligence and open-mindedness of Harvard undergraduates,” Ma wrote.

That mix of student influence and professional talent, like the mix of East and West on the Silk Road, may lead to any number of fusions in the future. The Silk Road Ensemble is used to making it up as they go along; improvisation and the combination of ancient melody with new ideas is the bedrock of what they do.

So, it shouldn’t be too surprising that no one is too sure about the form that their five-year residency at Harvard will take. Shelemay felt the situation could be summed up in a quotation from late composer Lou Harrison, known for his fusion of Eastern and Western styles: “Cherish the hybrids—they’re all we’ve got.”

—Contributing writer Jonathan M. Hanover contributed to the reporting of this article.

—Staff writer Abe J. Riesman can be reached at riesman@fas.harvard.edu