Silkroad Up-Close Trio Irish Arts Center. Photo courtesy of the artists.
THIS PROGRAM IS HELD OFF-SITE AT MANDALA YOGA CENTER
Harmony in Motion is an immersive workshop exploring the connections between live music, movement, deep listening, and meditation. Silkroad artists Maeve Gilchrist, an Edinburgh-born harpist and composer rooted in Celtic traditions, and Kaoru Watanabe, a renowned practitioner of Japanese flutes and percussion, join Mandala Yoga Center to guide participants through listening, movement, and breath exercises. No previous yoga, movement, or musical experience is required.
Continue the journey the following evening at Guild Hall, where Gilchrist and Watanabe join clarinetist Kinan Azmeh for an intimate Silkroad Up Close concert on Saturday, November 7.
Silkroad
A Grammy Award-winning musical ensemble, Silkroad is a collective of artists representing dozens of nationalities, traditions and ideas, who use music and art to demonstrate how great beauty can emerge from great difference. The Ensemble strives to engage difference, sparking radical collaboration and music with a purpose, for a more hopeful and inclusive world.
Maeve Gilchrist
Edinburgh-born harpist and composer Maeve Gilchrist has been credited as an innovator on her native instrument and has taken the Celtic (lever) Harp to new levels of performance and visibility. Currently based in Kingston, NY, Maeve tours internationally as a solo artist and composer as well as being a member of the GRAMMY-nominated Silkroad Ensemble, Arooj Aftab’s GRAMMY-winning Vulture Prince Ensemble and as part of the multi-disciplinary quartet Edges of Light. She has performed and recorded with such luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Frankie Gavin, Esperanza Spalding, Bruce Molsky, Ambrose Akinmusire and Solas. As a composer, Maeve straddles the worlds of folk and classical with pieces including her original concerto for symphony orchestra and harp (a co-commission with Luke Benton), a three-movement Samuel Beckett-inspired piece for harp, string quartet and sound samples which was premiered at the Edinburgh International Harp Festival in the spring of 2018 and a number of other pieces for harp ensembles and strings. She is a regular visiting artist at the Berklee College of Music and has had a number of instructional books published by Hal Leonard and 80 Days Publishing. Maeve has released a number of albums to her name on the Adventure Music Record Label as well as being a featured soloist on the Dreamworks blockbuster movie soundtrack, How to Tame Your Dragon: The Hidden World. Her most recent album, The Harpweaver, has garnered international acclaim including a five-star review from the Irish Times who described it as “buoyant, sprightly and utterly beguiling...a snapshot of a musician at the top of her game.” Maeve is the co-music director of the WGBH holiday show A Christmas Celtic Sojourn and the co-artistic director of the brand-new Rockport Celtic Music festival, an innovative new festival focused on cross-curation and the outer-fringes of Celtic Music.
Kaoru Watanabe
Acclaimed composer and instrumentalist Kaoru Watanabe's work is grounded in traditional Japanese music while imbued with jazz, improvisation, and experimental music elements. His signature skill of merging the music, literature, and aesthetic philosophies of Japan with disparate styles and mediums has made him a much-in-demand collaborator working with such iconic artists as André 3000, Yo-Yo Ma, Wes Anderson, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Laurie Anderson, Jason Moran, and Japanese National Living Treasure Bando Tamasaburo. A trained jazz musician, he became the first American to become a performer and artistic director of the ground-breaking Japanese taiko performing arts ensemble Kodo. In 2024, Watanabe launched Bloodlines Interwoven, a multifaceted commissioning project, festival, and ensemble celebrating heritage, immigration, and diaspora through music, cuisine, and storytelling.