Volume 21 Issue 1 - September 2015

The Silk Road Ensemble
with Yo-Yo Ma
principles and mandate
to promote “collaboration
and cultural exchange,
performing music that links
to the past, yet reflects our
21st-century global society,
align seamlessly with our
evolving music city.” It’s
a view that meshes well
with Toronto’s public and
political persona as “one of
the most diverse cities in
the world.”
Bassist Jeffrey Beecher:
inside the SRE. Jeffrey
Beecher is principal bassist
with the Toronto Symphony
Orchestra and serves on
the faculties of the Glenn
Gould School of the Royal
Conservatory of Music and
the University of Toronto.
He also makes time to tour
the world with the SRE and to perform with international orchestras.
On August 13 the affable Beecher took a break from an orchestral gig in
upper New York State to speak to me on Skype. I was curious about how
and when he was invited to play with the SRE.
“It was my sixth-degree-of-separation connection to some of the string
players in the group that got me an invitation in 2004 to play with the
SRE and then to tour with them.” It proved a satisfyingly collegial experience.
“It certainly wasn’t an ordinary orchestral audition,” he mused
“and I’ve been playing with them ever since!”
I explored with Beecher the constellation of ideas which gave birth
to the SRE, primarily couched in this article so far in the words of its
founder Yo-Yo Ma. Ma’s celebrity draw is such that even today, 15 years
into the ensemble’s successful career, his name often precedes appearances
of the SRE on concert marquees. Interestingly, Beecher portrays
a more complex internal dynamic that has evolved within the group.
“Over the years the group has experimented with several leadership
models. Though he is the artistic director, Yo-Yo Ma believes in flattened
hierarchies.”
It’s a sharing and supportive approach that applies to acquiring and
adapting the bespoke repertoire for SRE’s multi-ethnic non-standard
instrumentation as well. “It’s really on all of our shoulders. We players are
as much witnesses to the creative process as recreators [in the usual classical
music sense] in rehearsal and on stage. I’d say that every member of
the ensemble has an opportunity to creatively contribute. I’m working
on an arrangement [for SRE] right now.”
For Beecher the combination of the different perspectives brought by
musicians from diverse backgrounds culminates in real-time performances
on stage. “Because we’re coming from so many musical backgrounds,
such as represented by the [Galician] gaita, [South Asian]
tabla, [Chinese] pipa and [Iranian] kamancheh, one key question for
me regarding the evolution of our group is: in what directions do the
musicians collectively want to take their music in 2015?”
How does the SRE maintain such a unified, collective focus, I asked.
“One of Yo-Yo Ma’s gifts is keeping many people and ideas in his mind
at the same time,” he replied. “His attention, and the group’s, is not
centrally located in one particular ethnic community, but rather it’s
always mobile. I like to think of our model of music making as a caravanserai
resting for one night and then moving on.” There’s that silk
road metaphor again.
As for the educational component of SRE’s work, the parent Silkroad
organization has been affiliated with Harvard University since 2005,
encouraging “dialogue among artists and musicians, educators and
entrepreneurs, through mentorships and workshops,” as its website
declares. This chimes with Ma’s objective of attaining a sustainable
educational balance where science and the arts, critical and empathetic
reasoning – qualities too often unbalanced in mainstream society – are
linked in symbiotic harmony.
SRE continues that mission during its September 2015 Toronto residency
– not that it hasn’t held workshops in the city before. Beecher
reports that “last year we led a series of rewarding workshops with
Regent Park School of Music students during the inauguration of the
Aga Khan Museum.” Over the years the Aga Khan Trust for Culture has
been an enthusiastic SRE supporter. For example, not only is it a partnering
presenter of the SRE’s September 15 Massey Hall concert, but it
is also hosting a music workshop at the Museum, inviting students from
Massey Hall and Roy Thomson Hall’s Share the Music program. These
lucky learners will participate in a special educational program at the
Aga Khan Museum with the Ensemble the week of the performance.
Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble has grown well beyond the model of a
gigging musical ensemble, the breadth and scope of its vision eloquently
articulated by its high profile cellist leader and gifted musicians. Already
enjoying success today, the SRE is well positioned to continue to influence
the course of future musical streams, an ambition only a very select few
other musical groups have considered putting on their bucket lists.
Andrew Timar is a Toronto musician and music writer. He
can be contacted at worldmusic@thewholenote.com.
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