Silkroad Announces Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual

Touring in March 2026, the new program explores how communal music-making can help us heal, find comfort, and better understand our world.

Boston, MA — Today, Silkroad announced its next flagship touring program under the visionary artistic leadership of Rhiannon Giddens, Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual. From March 10-28, 2026, Giddens and the Silkroad Ensemble will visit eight cities across the United States, bringing a communal concert experience that emphasizes cross-cultural collaboration, improvisation, and audience participation. Many tour stops will include free public programming in addition to the performances, allowing for deeper connection and increased community access. Tickets for the Sanctuary concerts are on sale now.

In this new program, Giddens, Silkroad artists, and special guests explore how music can help us better understand our world, find comfort, process loss and a changing environment, and rebuild community based on our own humanity. Throughout history, humans have turned to music for solace and soothing in times of conflict or stress. In particular, the idea of “trance”—leading to a profound peace that is hard to find in modern society—is closely tied to the communal making of music in many different cultures. This shared musical experience helps us uplift one another, and find joy and hope through stronger relationships.

“This is a very exciting program for Silkroad, and it feels relevant for this time in our world. Music has been a healing force across cultures for thousands of years, something that soothes and reaches deep into one’s soul. In Sanctuary, we’re digging into various traditions where music has a long history of doing just that. Some are already represented within the Ensemble, and we’re learning about others with the help of our guest artists. I’m looking forward to this journey of connecting and healing through the power of music,” said Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens.

The roster of Silkroad artists assembled for the tour represents musical traditions from around the world, with master musicians from Congo, India, Italy, Japan, Lebanon, Scotland, and the United States: Shawn Conley, Sandeep Das, Haruka Fujii, Maeve Gilchrist, Layale Chaker, Karen Ouzounian, Mazz Swift, Niwel Tsumbu, Francesco Turrisi, and Kaoru Watanabe. Additionally, Moroccan guembri player Mehdi Nassouli and Italian percussionist Mauro Durante will join the Silkroad Ensemble as special guests for the first time. Through musical conversation and improvisation, the artists will delve into one another’s styles, such as Sicilian tarantella, Moroccan Gnawa, Indian Classical music, American old-time, and more.

The music comprising Sanctuary will unfold organically among the artists, as they explore new sounds and rhythms through active listening and improvisation. They will contribute ideas and compositions pulling from their own stories of how music has served as a source of healing and comfort, as well as respond to each other musically in real-time. Giddens and the Silkroad Ensemble also plan to engage with audiences more than ever before, inviting them to be active participants rather than passive bystanders and to be part of their community for the evening.

“This program comes out of a desire to know each other better, to know our traditions better, and to deepen our connections so that we can continue along. We’re going to be creating music more freely and in the moment, and engaging the audience as part of that process. Our hope is that the concert and the space itself will become a sanctuary for everyone,” added Giddens.

Throughout the tour, Silkroad will offer free public programming that takes musicians outside of the concert halls and into local communities for a more intimate experience, such as:

• In Bowling Green, Silkroad will partner with The Jar to bring an evening that weaves together art, conversation, and a shared meal. Participants will be in dialogue with people who are both like them and not like them, uncovering perspectives rarely encountered in daily life. Salons at The Jar aren’t shows to watch—they’re shared experiences that unfold moment by moment, sparking laughter, intimacy, and the possibility of lasting friendships.
• In Fairfax, Silkroad will join the Friends of the Center for the Arts Artist-in-Conversation series for an evening of dialogue, music, and shared movement. Silkroad is in its fourth year as a Mason Artist-in-Residence at the Center for the Arts at George Mason University.
• In Chicago, Silkroad will lead a community dance workshop in collaboration with Old Town School’s Music Moves Initiative, exploring trance-inspired dance traditions and celebrating the power of music and movement. This vibrant event invites participants of all ages to connect through rhythm, culture, and shared creative expression.
• In the Bay Area, Silkroad will partner with the Oakland Public Conservatory of Music to bring specially curated artistic experiences throughout Oakland communities. This collaboration, part of the Conservatory’s 20th anniversary celebration, will honor two decades of creative excellence and community impact in Oakland.

The schedule and details for the free public programming will be announced on a rolling basis.

“The Silkroad team is proud to offer these multi-day, free experiences for the general public—which are drawn out of conversations and engagement with local communities—to complement the debut tour of Sanctuary. We are consciously considering how we enter, engage, and exit the communities that we visit as we travel across the country, as well as contemplating how we can build this work in a way that speaks to local traditions, needs, and interests. Our hope is that these activities will be meaningful touchpoints for all involved, and that they will resonate with communities beyond the halls,” said Executive Director Ben Hartley.

2026 SANCTUARY: THE POWER OF RESONANCE AND RITUAL TOUR – ROSTER & SCHEDULE:

Rhiannon Giddens, banjo/vocals
Shawn Conley, bass
Sandeep Das, tabla
Mauro Durante*, percussion
Haruka Fujii, marimba, percussion
Maeve Gilchrist, harp / Layale Chaker, violin
Karen Ouzounian, cello
Mazz Swift, violin/vocals
Niwel Tsumbu, guitar
Francesco Turrisi, frame drums, accordion
Kaoru Watanabe, Japanese flutes and percussion
Mehdi Nassouli*, guembri

*Guest artist

March 10, 2026
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH
Tickets

March 12, 2026
Indiana University Auditorium
Bloomington, IN
Tickets

March 15, 2026
Harris Theater
Chicago, IL
Tickets

March 19-20, 2026
Presented by Cal Performances
Zellerbach Hall
Berkeley, CA
Tickets

March 22, 2026
Center for the Arts at George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
Tickets

March 26, 2026
Kodak Hall at Eastman Theatre
Rochester, NY
Tickets

March 27, 2026
Tilles Center for the Performing Arts
Brookville, NY
Tickets

March 28, 2026
McCarter Theatre Center
Princeton, NJ
Tickets


Acknowledgements & Funding Credits
Major support for Silkroad's Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual is provided, in part, by LaVon Kellner and Tom Roush, Diann Kim and John Frank, Mellon Foundation, and Lori and Ted Samuels, along with other generous donors to Silkroad who believe in music's essential role in healing across cultures and traditions.

About Silkroad
Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998, recognizing the historical Silk Road as a model for cultural collaboration—for the exchange of ideas, tradition, and innovation across borders. In a groundbreaking experiment, he brought together musicians from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a musical language founded in difference, thus creating the foundation of Silkroad: both a touring ensemble comprised of world-class musicians from all over the globe and a Boston-based non-profit organization working to make a positive impact across borders through the arts.

Today, under the leadership of Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens and Executive Director Ben Hartley, Silkroad leads social impact initiatives and educational programming alongside the creation of new music by the Grammy Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble.

To learn more, please visit silkroad.org and @silkroadproject on social media.

About Rhiannon Giddens
Rhiannon Giddens has made a singular, iconic career out of stretching her brand of folk music, with its miles-deep historical roots and contemporary sensibilities, into just about every field imaginable. A two-time Grammy Award-winning singer and multi-instrumentalist, MacArthur “Genius” grant recipient, Pulitzer Prize winner, and composer of opera, ballet, and film, Giddens has centered her work around the mission of lifting up people whose contributions to American musical history have previously been overlooked or erased, and advocating for a more accurate understanding of the country’s musical origins through art.

A founding member of the landmark Black string band Carolina Chocolate Drops, and the all-female banjo supergroup, Our Native Daughters, Giddens is as much a curator as a creator. She is the current Artistic Director of the Yo-Yo Ma-founded Silkroad Ensemble, hosts a TV show on PBS, My Music with Rhiannon Giddens, and has hosted two podcasts (Aria Code from New York City’s NPR affiliate station WQXR, which ran for three seasons, and American Railroad from Silkroad). Giddens has published two children's books and written and performed music for the soundtrack of Red Dead Redemption II, one of the best-selling video games of all time. She appeared as a recurring cast member on ABC's hit drama Nashville and as a music history expert on Ken Burns’ Country Music series on PBS. In 2025, she launched her own music festival in Durham, NC called Biscuits & Banjos, to celebrate Black culture outside the mainstream.

As Pitchfork once said, “few artists are so fearless and so ravenous in their exploration”—a journey that has led to NPR naming her one of its 25 Most Influential Women Musicians of the 21st Century and to American Songwriter calling her “one of the most important musical minds currently walking the planet.”

Her most recent album, a collaboration with Justin Robinson, is What Did the Blackbird Say to the Crow (April 2025).

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