Silk Road Music: Difference between revisions

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{{AAType
{{AAType
|Image=Kiran.jpg
|Image=Silkroad.gif
|Home page=http://www.kiranmusic.com/flash_content/flash_content.html
|Home page=http://silkroadmusic.ca/
|Location=Calgary
|Location=Vancouver
|Arts=Music
|Arts=Music
|Type=Person
|Type=Person
|Aspects=Developer
|Aspects=Developer
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}}
#REDIRECT [[Kiran Ahluwalia]]
Silk Road is a professional Chinese troupe that has a consistently successful rapport with audiences. It has twice won the Best World Music Award from the West Coast and was also nominated for a JUNO. Based in Vancouver BC, it uses its innovative approach of classical Chinese music to promote cultural links with non-Asian traditions, reflecting the true multicultural spirit of immigrants in Canada. Silk Road Music offers musical programs with a variety of personnel formats, from duo to quintet. All formats include Pipa virtuoso Qiu Xia He (founder of Silk Road Music) and the talented multi-instrumentalist Andre Thibault. All formats provide both concert and school programs.


Expressing her muse through ghazals and Punjabi folk songs, Kiran Ahluwalia explores the language of the heart with beautiful artistry and smoldering intensity. Born in India, raised in Canada, and now living in New York City, her enchanting and seductive music has garnered glowing praise from critics around the world. Her’s is “a voice destined to enchant more than one generation” (fROOTS) and she possesses “a deep spirituality and tranquility that borders on the mystic” (Sing Out Magazine).  But most of all, Kiran Ahluwalia is a unique and inspiring performer and composer, who’s legion of fans continues to grow with every captivating performance and each new recording project.
Silk Road creates music with a very new sound based on solid traditional Chinese music and interpretive technique. Bold, colourful arrangements combine pipa (Chinese lute) played by Qiu Xia He, ruan (Chinese guitar) played by Zhi Min Yu, and guitar, oud and percussion played by Andre Thibault. Instrumental virtuosity gives scope for superb singing. Willy Miles, a Vancouver opera sensation, sings in English. Feng Jun Wang, trained in the Beijing Opera, sings in Mandarin. Each draws on a great theatrical tradition and rigorous vocal training. Together, they and their fellow musicians give the performances all the beauty of the Chinese folk tradition and plenty of Western showmanship.


Silk Road Music is one of the few Chinese touring ensembles in North America to have performed at all the major festivals in Canada. Its music has been featured on CBC’s Asian music compilation, and by the Philadelphia Museum, Whitefish Theater in Montana, Seattle Asian Museum, the BBC international recital in the UK, Montreal Jazz Festival, Festival De Quebec, Kentucky Arts Centre and Charlotte, N.C. Throughout its travels, Silk Road Music has realized the potential of music as both the expression of a culture and a powerful link between cultures. Silk Road’s audiences have gained a greater understanding for Chinese music, for the music of their own traditions, and for the energy that results when cultures eagerly try to learn from one another.


Kiran has long been on a path to mastery to sing and compose ghazals - the sensual and highly literary poetry about unrequited love and passion for all things. “When I was growing up in India, very few people had recordings of any kind,” she recalls. “There were state sponsored concerts that people from all over would crowd into. These concerts were not primarily for children. They featured a repertoire, language and content that was both demanding and beyond the experience of a child. I was, however, entranced by the sound and feel of the music, even from an early age.” Seeing the strong connection Kiran had to this music, her father purchased a reel-to-reel tape machine on a visit to Hong Kong. “My father would play tapes of Indian music for me on the reel-to-reel and we would also listen to Bollywood on the radio”, Kiran recalls. “So when a song came on that I wanted to learn, my mother would quickly write down the lyrics for me”.
Qiu Xia and Andre offer the Silk Road Duo show China Speaks Your Language for both concerts and school programs.


This husband-and-wife team is well equipped for cultural exploration. … Their love of music has taken them on tours all over the world with award-winning groups like Silk Road Music, ASZA, Cordes en Folie and JouTou.


Kiran immersed herself in Indian classical music and ghazals from the time she was seven, but she also spent a decade of intense deep study with her guru Vithal Rao, starting in the early 1990s. At the same time, she traveled throughout the Punjab, immersing herself in the style and approach of Punjabi folk songs. Finally in 2001 she recorded her first commercial CD, Kashish-Attraction. This was followed by Beyond Boundaries in 2003 and then a self-titled compilation that was released world wide on the Triloka label in 2005.
Over the past 15 years they have performed in many different venues, including the Montreal Jazz Festival, a BBC recital in England, the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, hundreds of schools in North America, UBC and SFU in Vancouver, and countless community concert series. In 2004, they were featured with the Vancouver Symphony at the Orpheum to welcome His Holiness the Dalai Lama.




Her latest CD, Wanderlust (Time Square/World Connection) was released in North America in 2007 and in Europe in May of 2008. It will also be released in India later this year on the prestigious Saragama label. All of her albums have been nominated for JUNO Awards - the highest musical honour in Canada - and Beyond Boundaries also took home the prestigious prize.


Duo
Discoveries and travels of Qiu Xia He with her pipa, accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Andre Thibault. A guest percussionist is available.


Kiran has made a career of transcending the boundaries often imposed on artists from outside the mainstream. On album, her compositions and arrangements have contributed to the evolution of the ghazal genre, through the subtle use of a multitude of sounds and styles from other cultures - including: Portuguese fado guitarra, sub Saharan percussion, Celtic fiddle, Pakistani qawwali vocals, the rhubab of Afghanistan and more. In live performance she has also been a keen collaborator . Within the last year alone, Kiran has performed her compositions with a 33-piece Chamber Orchestra, jazz guitar and saxophone, an Inuit throat singer, and over the driving beat of a dub electronica group.
Full Group
Silk Road Music is an award winning group that has taken Chinese-Western collaboration to a new level. Its innovative blend of Asian, jazz, Latin, Celtic music and classical Chinese instruments and techniques has created a unique sound. It can be presented with a quintet, quartet, trio or duo.




Kiran¹s Ahluwalia’s music is a reflection of her on going quest to bring the ghazal style into a modern and global context - while maintaining a seamless through line from it’s storied past. Though she may sing about unfulfilled desires, her music reveals a compelling harmony that unites diverse inspirations into a truly sublime and satisfying whole.
 
Duo
Recent research suggests that the Chinese explorers of the 15th century voyaged not only to India and Africa, but around the world to the Americas. Whether true or not, this controversial theory has inspired a worldwide journey of musical exploration by the Silk Road Duo. In an adventurous encounter of musical traditions, Qiu Xia He and Andre Thibault show that China does indeed speak your language. A guest percussionist is available.
 
{{From|http://silkroadmusic.ca/|http://silkroadmusic.ca/who-is-silk-road-music}}

Latest revision as of 23:22, 28 June 2012

Créer la version française

Silk Road Music


Location

Vancouver


Silk Road is a professional Chinese troupe that has a consistently successful rapport with audiences. It has twice won the Best World Music Award from the West Coast and was also nominated for a JUNO. Based in Vancouver BC, it uses its innovative approach of classical Chinese music to promote cultural links with non-Asian traditions, reflecting the true multicultural spirit of immigrants in Canada. Silk Road Music offers musical programs with a variety of personnel formats, from duo to quintet. All formats include Pipa virtuoso Qiu Xia He (founder of Silk Road Music) and the talented multi-instrumentalist Andre Thibault. All formats provide both concert and school programs.

Silk Road creates music with a very new sound based on solid traditional Chinese music and interpretive technique. Bold, colourful arrangements combine pipa (Chinese lute) played by Qiu Xia He, ruan (Chinese guitar) played by Zhi Min Yu, and guitar, oud and percussion played by Andre Thibault. Instrumental virtuosity gives scope for superb singing. Willy Miles, a Vancouver opera sensation, sings in English. Feng Jun Wang, trained in the Beijing Opera, sings in Mandarin. Each draws on a great theatrical tradition and rigorous vocal training. Together, they and their fellow musicians give the performances all the beauty of the Chinese folk tradition and plenty of Western showmanship.

Silk Road Music is one of the few Chinese touring ensembles in North America to have performed at all the major festivals in Canada. Its music has been featured on CBC’s Asian music compilation, and by the Philadelphia Museum, Whitefish Theater in Montana, Seattle Asian Museum, the BBC international recital in the UK, Montreal Jazz Festival, Festival De Quebec, Kentucky Arts Centre and Charlotte, N.C. Throughout its travels, Silk Road Music has realized the potential of music as both the expression of a culture and a powerful link between cultures. Silk Road’s audiences have gained a greater understanding for Chinese music, for the music of their own traditions, and for the energy that results when cultures eagerly try to learn from one another.

Qiu Xia and Andre offer the Silk Road Duo show China Speaks Your Language for both concerts and school programs.

This husband-and-wife team is well equipped for cultural exploration. … Their love of music has taken them on tours all over the world with award-winning groups like Silk Road Music, ASZA, Cordes en Folie and JouTou.

Over the past 15 years they have performed in many different venues, including the Montreal Jazz Festival, a BBC recital in England, the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur, hundreds of schools in North America, UBC and SFU in Vancouver, and countless community concert series. In 2004, they were featured with the Vancouver Symphony at the Orpheum to welcome His Holiness the Dalai Lama.


Duo Discoveries and travels of Qiu Xia He with her pipa, accompanied by multi-instrumentalist Andre Thibault. A guest percussionist is available.

Full Group Silk Road Music is an award winning group that has taken Chinese-Western collaboration to a new level. Its innovative blend of Asian, jazz, Latin, Celtic music and classical Chinese instruments and techniques has created a unique sound. It can be presented with a quintet, quartet, trio or duo.


Duo Recent research suggests that the Chinese explorers of the 15th century voyaged not only to India and Africa, but around the world to the Americas. Whether true or not, this controversial theory has inspired a worldwide journey of musical exploration by the Silk Road Duo. In an adventurous encounter of musical traditions, Qiu Xia He and Andre Thibault show that China does indeed speak your language. A guest percussionist is available.


This article based on content from http://silkroadmusic.ca/. Original version: http://silkroadmusic.ca/who-is-silk-road-music