The atmosphere for this first of two concerts by the Silk Road Ensemble was electric with anticipation as a capacity audience jammed the Granada Theatre to see cellist and musical visionary Yo-Yo Ma perform alongside his innovative world-music group. Music fans from a variety of backgrounds joined UCSB students, faculty, and administrators in enjoying an eclectic program that nevertheless cohered enough to leave a compellingly unified impression.
The sprawling band featured 15 musicians performing on instruments ranging from the familiar (violin, viola, cello) to the intriguingly exotic (kamancheh, gaita, shakuhachi). The night’s two most ambitious compositions were world premieres. All of the music demonstrated that this ensemble works from a premise unlike that of any other, as the idea of inventing new musical languages and forms is present in everything that Silk Road does.
The opening number, “Vojo,” provides an excellent example of one way that Silk Road explores new musical horizons. It begins as a duet between Cristina Pato’s gaita, which is a Galician type of bagpipe, and the shakuhachi flute of Kojiro Umezaki. The title “Vojo” is taken from the universal language of Esperanto, and the piece reflects a similar desire to go beyond mere translation in order to establish a new independent language. Rather than write a shakuhachi piece with a part for gaita, or vice versa, the two explored their instrumental vocabularies until common patterns emerged, and then composed the final work based on these mutually acknowledged elements.