SUMMARY
- UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Silkroad’s Home Within
- Conceived by Kinan Azmeh; composer, clarinet and Kevork Mourad; live illustrations, visuals
- Home Within is an audio-visual performance; an impressionistic reflection on loss, longing and the impact of tragedy on our sense of home
- Silkroad is an ensemble of world-class musicians and an organization – now led by Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens – committed to social impact initiatives, educational programing and the creation of new music
- Silkroad’s 2016 release, Sing Me Home, won the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album
- Silkroad was originally conceived by Yo-Yo Ma in 1998
- This presentation is part of the 2021-2022 CREATING HOPE programming initiative
- Thursday, March 31st / 8:00 p.m. Pacific / Campbell Hall
- $30 – $45 : General Public / FREE for UCSB Students (Current student ID required)
- Health & Safety: Proof of full vaccination is required for all attendees. Proof of booster vaccination will be required for all eligible attendees beginning February 4, 2022. Masks are required indoors at all times. N95, KN95, KF94 or FFP2 face masks are strongly recommended. Regardless of the mask type, it is only effective if it is worn over your mouth and nose. Visit https://artsandlectures.ucsb.edu/SeasonFAQs/ for updates and further details.
- Tickets/Info: (805) 893-3535, www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu or (805) 963-4408 / AXS
- This event includes an at-home viewing option (live stream only; no replay).
▶ ▶ ▶ Editors/Reviewers: Please include the full name of UCSB Arts & Lectures in all media coverage, including reviews.
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UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Silkroad’s Home Within, an audio-visual performance conceived by Kinan Azmeh, composer and clarinetist and Kevork Mourad, live illustrations and visuals; Thursday, March 31st at 8:00 p.m. at Campbell Hall. This presentation is part of the 2021-2022 CREATING HOPE programming initiative.
“Kevork Mourad’s live sketches combine with Kinan Azmeh’s clarinet to create a whirlwind of images to mirror the seven years of war that have made their country unrecognizable.” Reuters
Home Within is Kinan Azmeh and Kevork Mourad’s emotional account of home in a time of conflict, it is an impressionistic reflection on loss, longing and the impact of tragedy on our sense of home. Rather than follow a narrative, the artists document home within specific moments in Syria’s recent history, using the counterpoint between image and sound to establish a sense of sustained urgency and continued hope for both their homeland and communities around the world.
What is home? Is it where you grew up? The place that contributed most to who you’ve become? Perhaps it’s a dynamic concept most strongly defined by deep emotions. This latest production from Silkroad captures this impressionistic reflection in Home Within. Azmeh and Mourad created this audiovisual meditation on loss, longing and the tragedy of Syrian conflict that has claimed over a half-million lives. With the Silkroad Ensemble (founded by Yo-Yo Ma to foster cross-cultural exchanges), Azmeh and Mourad expanded Home Within to include cello, percussion, voice and oud – their music melding together as animation augments Mourad’s real-time image-making. The result is a work both haunted by history and buoyed by the hope that those who still seek their home will soon discover it.
ABOUT SILKROAD
Silkroad creates music that engages difference, sparking radical cultural collaboration and passion-driven learning to build a more hopeful world. Founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the group has been called “vibrant and virtuosic” by the Wall Street Journal, “one of the 21st century’s great ensembles” by the Vancouver Sun, and a “roving musical laboratory without walls” by the Boston Globe.
Silkroad musicians appear in many configurations and settings, from intimate groups of two and three in museum galleries to rousing complements of eighteen in concert halls, public squares and amphitheaters. Off the stage, they lead professional development and musician training workshops, create residency programs in schools, museums and communities and experiment with new media and genres to share Silkroad’s approach to radical cultural collaboration.
Silkroad musicians and composers hail from more than 20 countries, drawing on a rich tapestry of traditions to create a new musical language — a uniquely engaging and accessible encounter between the foreign and the familiar that reflects our many-layered contemporary identities. As the Los Angeles Times has said, Silkroad’s “vision of international cooperation is not what we read in our daily news reports. Theirs is the better world available if we, like these extraordinary musicians, agree to make it one.”
The Silkroad Ensemble has performed in more than 100 cities in over 30 countries and recorded seven albums; its 2016 release, Sing Me Home, won the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album. The Music of Strangers, a documentary about the Ensemble directed by the Academy Award-winning filmmaker Morgan Neville, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2015 and was released worldwide in 2016.
In 2020, celebrated singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens was appointed Artistic Director of Silkroad. Giddens has been a collaborator of Silkroad since 2016, having performed as a special guest with the Silkroad Ensemble and on the Grammy Award-winning album, Sing Me Home. Recently, she was featured in Home Sessions — a series launched in response to the COVID-19 pandemic — alongside Francesco Turrisi. In her role, Giddens oversees and conceives artistic programs that support Silkroad’s mission of engaging difference and sparking radical cultural collaboration and passion-driven learning for a more hopeful and inclusive world.
See A&L’s full 2022 lineup here
This is a moment that calls for Optimism, Resilience, Courage and Vision.
Santa Barbara needs Hope, and Arts & Lectures is uniquely positioned to respond.
A&L’s 2021-2022 CREATING HOPE programming initiative has already inspired our community with presentations by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, chef José Andrés and author Anne Lamott. We will continue to inspire, through shared experiences with thought leaders, creative problem solvers and arts visionaries who will guide us forward. CREATING HOPE programs strengthen human connection, promote emotional well-being, joy and compassion, and envision positive change. Learn more about the CREATING HOPE: https://artsandlectures.ucsb.edu/CreatingHope.aspx
ABOUT UCSB ARTS & LECTURES
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures (A&L) is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A&L annually presents more than a hundred public events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
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Silkroad is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures.
This presentation is part of the 2021-2022 CREATING HOPE programming initiative.
$30 – $45 : General Public / Free for UCSB Students (Current student ID required)
For tickets and more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 or visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.
Major Sponsor: Jody & John Arnhold
Special Thanks:
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2021-2022 season.
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