Silkroad and New England Conservatory Announce 2022 Global Musician Workshop

The five-day program will welcome 60 students from around the globe to participate in tuition-free classes and public performances with Silkroad artists and special guests

Boston, MA — Today, Silkroad and New England Conservatory (NEC) announced the continuation of their partnership to present the Global Musician Workshop (GMW) from August 8-12. Directed by cellist Mike Block and co-led by pipa player Wu Man—who was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Music from NEC last year—the program brings together all-star faculty artists, including members of the Grammy Award-winning Silkroad Ensemble and special guests, and students who represent a variety of cultures and musical languages. Over five days, participants will engage in faculty-led workshops, jam sessions, topic-based elective classes, and more. They will also share the legendary NEC Jordan Hall stage for a multi-night Performance Festival, from August 10-12, to showcase their learnings and music making.

“This will be our first in-person reunion of the GMW community since the pandemic and we are so excited to collaborate again, learning music from both faculty and participants over five intense days of rehearsals, jamming, and workshops,” said GMW Director Mike Block. “GMW is a one-of-a-kind gathering of globally-minded musical artists from vastly different cultures, styles, and instruments. The week of cross-cultural explorations and collaborations is beyond the scope of anything I’ve experienced anywhere else, and our public performances will give us the opportunity to share our joyous music live with the Boston community for the first time!”

GMW is a musician-training program that is modeled after the principle of cultural collaboration guiding the Silkroad Ensemble. Open to anyone over the age of 18, participants include professional and amateur performers, students, teachers, and teaching artists from a plethora of backgrounds and musical styles. Through the inclusion of classical, folk, jazz, and traditional genres from across the globe, they learn, share, and incorporate each other’s traditions while expanding their own artistry. Hundreds of musicians, representing nearly 40 different countries and over 40 kinds of instruments, have participated in GMW since its inception in 2015.

This year, and for the very first time, 60 applicants were selected out of a pool of 158 to participate in GMW with tuition fees being fully underwritten by Silkroad (a value of $1,000 per student). Applicants to the 2022 program represented 33 countries and 42 different instruments.

For more information about GMW, please visit silkroad.org/gmw.
 

Silkroad’s 2022 Global Musician Workshop (GMW)
Hosted in Partnership with New England Conservatory
Monday, August 8-Friday, August 12
New England Conservatory’s Campus (not open to the public)
GMW Director Mike Block and Co-Lead Wu Man, as well as musicians from the Silkroad Ensemble and their colleagues, lead a professional development program that includes group workshops, play-along jam sessions, panel discussions, topic-based elective classes, and more—all representing a wide range of backgrounds and traditions from around the world.

2022 GMW Faculty & Special Guests
Mike Block, GMW Director/Silkroad Artist & NEC Faculty/Multi-Style cello
Wu Man, GMW Co-Lead/Silkroad Artist/Pipa
Jamey Haddad, Percussion
Balla Kouyaté, NEC Faculty/Balafon
Abeer Nehme, Voice
Kala Ramnath, Indian Hindustani Violin
Kaoru Watanabe, Silkroad Artist/Japanese Flutes & Percussion
Hankus Netsky, GMW Guest Artist/NEC Faculty/Multi-instrumentalist

2022 GMW Performance Festival
Wednesday, August 10-Friday, August 12 at 8 p.m. nightly
New England Conservatory’s Jordan Hall (open to the public; suggested donation: $20)
Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop presents three varied concerts, showcasing GMW faculty and participants alike! On August 10, the GMW Faculty Concert will feature newly created arrangements by the faculty artists, blending together musics from India, Japan, the United States, China, Lebanon, and more. On August 11 and 12, GMW participants will perform in bands with GMW faculty to present brand-new arrangements of tunes from around the world.

2022 GMW Funding Credits
Support for GMW is provided, in part, by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Alice L. Walton Foundation, the Barr Foundation, and Hyosung Corporation. Silkroad gratefully acknowledges their generous support of activities that promote innovation, education, and cross-cultural understanding through the arts.

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 social impact organization working to make a positive impact across borders through the arts.

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

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

About New England Conservatory 
Founded by Eben Tourjée in Boston, Massachusetts in 1867, the New England Conservatory (NEC) represents a model of music school that combines the best of European tradition with American innovation. This independent conservatory stands at the center of Boston’s rich cultural history and musical life, presenting concerts at the renowned Jordan Hall on Huntington Avenue, recognized as Boston’s Avenue of the Arts. As a not-for-profit institution that educates and trains musicians of all ages, NEC cultivates a diverse, dynamic community, providing music students of more than 40 countries with performance opportunities and high-caliber training from 225 internationally esteemed artist-teachers and scholars. Propelled by profound artistry, bold creativity and deep compassion, NEC seeks to amplify musicians’ impact on advancing our shared humanity, and empowers students to meet today’s changing world head-on, equipped with the tools and confidence to forge multidimensional lives of artistic depth and relevance. NEC pushes the boundaries of music-making and teaching through college-level training in classical, jazz, and contemporary improvisation. Through unique interdisciplinary programs such as Entrepreneurial Musicianship and Community Performances & Partnerships, NEC empowers students to create their own musical opportunities. As part of NEC’s mission to make lifelong music education available to everyone, the Preparatory School and School of Continuing Education deliver training and performance opportunities for children, pre-college students and adults.

To learn more about NEC, please visit necmusic.edu and @necmusic on social media. 

###