Friday, May 3, 2019, 8pm Zellerbach Hall Silkroad Ensemble Heroes Take Their Stands

e Silkroad Ensemble Jeffrey Beecher, bass Nicholas Cords, viola Sandeep Das, tabla Haruka Fujii, percussion Johnny Gandelsman, violin Colin Jacobsen, violin Kayhan Kalhor, kemancheh Karen Ouzounian, cello Aparna Ramaswamy, Bharatanatyam dancer Shane Shanahan, percussion Kojiro Umezaki, Kaoru Watanabe, , , , narimono Wu Man, pipa Wu Tong, sheng, suona

Ahmad Sadri, creator Colin Jacobsen and Kayhan Kalhor, music directors

Cal Performances’ 2018 –19 season is sponsored by Wells Fargo.

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Heroes Take Their Stands “To live successfully in a cosmopolitan society, we must develop skills to see another’s culture as our own.” — Ahmad Sadri, creator, folklorist

Elektra e Oresteia , 5th century BCE Pauchi Sasaki, composer Nomi Sasaki, co-direction, script, art design, and Chinese black ink animation Juan Carlos Yanaura, co-direction, animation, and post production Omar Lavalle, 3D scanning and sculpture design

June Snow

e stand of Dou E, 13th century Kaoru Watanabe, composer and co-conception Wu Man, creative director and co-conception

Arjuna’s Revelation e Bhagavad Gita , 2nd century BCE Colin Jacobsen, composer Aparna Ramaswamy, choreographer

Moderato 400 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. at the Holt Street Baptist Church, 1955 Jason Moran, composer Lucy Raven, video

e Prince of Sorrows e stand of Siavosh from e Shahnameh , 10th century Kayhan Kalhor, composer Hamid Rahmanian, designer and director Qmars Kamali, animation Syd Fini, illustrator Mohsen Ebadi, calligraphy A production of Fictionville Studio Recorded music by Navid Afghah, tombak Siamak Jahangiri, nay Amir Mardaneh, vocals

Additional music and arrangements by Ljova

Tonight’s performance will last approximately 90 minutes. ere will be no intermission.

1 PROGRAM NOTES

About Silkroad needed music, stories, lore, and faith to con - Yo-Yo Ma conceived Silkroad in 1998 as a template how one goes about taking a stand for reminder that even as rapid globalization re - what is just and right. ere is a timelessness sulted in division, it brought extraordinary and universality to answers to humanity’s great - possibilities for working together. Seeking to est questions; no matter how far in the past or understand this dynamic, he began to learn across the globe they may have occurred, there about the historical Silk Road, recognizing in is always more to learn from moral and ethical it a model for productive cultural collaboration, dilemmas such as these. for the exchange of ideas and tradition along - At its essence, Heroes Take eir Stands is side commerce and innovation. And in a radi - about the experience of being fearlessly human: cal experiment, he brought together musicians having independent opinions, making ethical from the lands of the Silk Road to co-create a decisions, and showing courage and integrity new artistic idiom, a musical language founded when one’s loyalty to an immemorial institution in difference, a metaphor for the benefits of a is challenged. Tonight’s performance is made up more connected world. of a suite of five figures across time and around Today, these Grammy Award-winning artists the world derived from mythology, folklore, seek and practice radical cultural collaboration history, religion, drama, epic, and oratory. We in many forms, creating and presenting new have interpreted these five singular moments of music, teacher and musician training work - heroic insight and response in a performance shops, and residency programs in schools, for the present day. Each musical composition museums, and communities. has a different form of artistic counterpoint Silkroad has recorded seven albums. Sing Me to amplify the experience we want you, our Home , which won the 2016 Grammy for Best audience, to share. As Silkroad has distilled World Music Album, was developed and re - the spirit of these five heroic stands into this corded alongside the documentary feature performance, we invite you to immerse your- e Music of Strangers , from Oscar-winning selves in these timeless stories and continue the director Morgan Neville. conversation about their meaning and rele - Silkroad gratefully acknowledges the support vance for today’s world. of individuals, foundations, and corporations, —Jeffrey Beecher, Nicholas Cords, including the National Endowment for the & Shane Shanahan, Arts, the Barr Foundation, and Hyosung Corp - Co-Artistic Directors, Silkroad oration. To learn more about Silkroad, please visit A Note from Ahmad Sadri silkroad.org on the web and @silkroadproject Human societies have used folklore and tradi - on social media. tion as means of sharing, reinforcing, and per - petuating values, and conveying deeply held An Invitation moral and ethical norms. e protagonists As individuals, our layered web of duties—to we encounter in the suite of five performances the self, to family, to communities, to society, to that comprise Heroes Take eir Stands were the planet—presents conundrums throughout not born heroes. None of them are superior to our lives. Occasionally, some among us are humankind, nor are they deities or superheroes. forced to make decisions that are world- ey are normal individuals who choose to changing, ones not easily made and rarely act or react in ways that spare others’ lives or obvious. Such decisions require careful con - right profound injustices—and their acts offer sideration and fortitude, for they are oen enduring inspiration for us all. e decisions perilous and come at great cost to the self or they make at these crucial moments in their others. Because of the potential for sacrifice at lives—to do the right thing, to do the just thing, such moments, people throughout history have regardless of the personal consequences—

 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES is what makes them heroes. eir examples consumed with the idea of murdering her own demonstrate that each of us is born with a mother because of profound loyalty to her capacity for heroism—and that it is up to each unjustly murdered father: the injustice of his of us to choose to act, to take our stand. death at the hand of her mother’s new lover I have always felt that the sublime essence and fuels Elektra’s quest for justice even when she grandeur of the heroic gesture cannot be truly suspects her own brother—prophesied to captured in words alone. is was my inspira - com plete the deed—is dead. Sophocles has us tion for bringing these stories to Silkroad. pay intimate attention to Elektra’s attempts —Ahmad Sadri to process, understand, and explain her own Creator, Heroes Take eir Stands emotions and convictions to herself as well as April 2019 to the others she strives to convince of her plan’s fairness: her battle is not one fought with horses Heroes Take eir Stands and artillery, but inside herself. In the end, she Each of the five pieces in Heroes Take eir achieves the justice she has long sought, though Stands was developed as part of a “conversation”: the outcome is both blood-soaked and bitter - between director and composer; composer and sweet. Composer Pauchi Sasaki and visual artistic collaborator; musicians and audience; artists Nomi Sasaki and Juan Carlos Yanaura time and place; an historic past and today’s bring us into Elektra’s subjectivity and interior society; physical text and contemporary media; conflict—one deeply resonant with today’s the present setting and the wider world outside struggles with social media, truthfulness, and of it; and between you as an individual and your independent thought—using a combination of life experiences to come. suona , tabla , uchiwa daiko , and augmented ough they share a common theme— reality, among other elements. as well as occasional impressions and motifs— each piece in Heroes Take eir Stands was June Snow crea ted separately, and is capable of standing Written in the Yuan dynasty by Guan Hanqing, alone as a human interpretation and response and also known as “e Injustice to Dou E” and (in a long line of interpretations and responses) “Snow in Midsummer,” this classic subject to a timeless question: How would you act, of Chinese opera is the tale of a widowed in your individual circumstances, in such a child-bride and her mother-in-law. Aer being situation? bullied by a physician seeking to take advantage As each composition has been fully liberated of their social vulnerability, the two women are from its original, written text, none of the five “saved” by a hooligan named Zhang—who then pieces is meant to be a “definitive” retelling of moves into their home uninvited and tries to the story or even of the events to which they force Dou E to marry him. When she refuses, per tain. Rather, Heroes Take eir Stands is a Zhang attempts to murder Dou E’s mother-in- means for bringing this enduring theme alive law—but inadvertently kills his own father, and in the current day: of connecting performers then frames the older woman. Dou E faces a and audiences to epochs and cultures that may choice and stands by her mother-in-law and her lie outside their own, yet timelessly share the bond with her dead husband’s family. Before their same philosophical, moral, and emotional execution, she announces that snow will come in engagement with the vicissitudes of the hu - the midst of summer to mark the injustice and man condition. prove their innocence. Drawing on inspiration from Beijing opera and kabuki theater, com po- Elektra ser Kaoru Watanabe and creative director Wu Among the best-known of the Greek tragedies, Man co-conceived this piece that balances an the story of Elektra is in fact told in many ancient and modern interpretation of Duo E’s different ways. In Sophocles’ version, she is epic through music and calligraphic imagery.

1 PROGRAM NOTES

Arjuna’s Revelation his righteous duty; and, because one must e Bhagavad Gita is a part of the Hindu epic heroically confront death in order to transcend Mahabharata —the story of the ri between two the limits of worldly existence. Composer Colin Indian families that puts five brothers at war Jacobsen and choreographer Aparna Rama - with a hundred of their own cousins. e swamy create six dialogues between music and Gita is a philosophical poem in the form of a dance to explore Arjuna’s divine awakening. dialogue between Arjuna—a warrior-ruler by caste and a mighty archer by training, who sees Moderato 400 his family across the battlefield—and the Hindu During the Great Migration, millions of African deity Krishna. Arjuna faces a paralyzing moral Americans le the South, begging the question crisis: is winning the kingdom worth spilling for those who stayed in places like Mont - the blood of his own kin, even though their gomery, Alabama, of how to secure the most own selfishness and discord foments the war? basic rights such as walking down the street, Gradually unfolding the concept of dharma — riding on public transportation, being a part the moral order that sustains the cosmos, of a community. A visitor, in the form of the society, and individuals—Krishna reveals to Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., comes to Arjuna why he must go into battle: because address a crowd gathered in the safe space of he is using loyalty as an excuse for inaction; an African American church: to let them know because selood is an illusion if we are all part they’re heard, to voice his concern, to signal of a “oneness”; because as a warrior-ruler, it is change that can be brought about, and to con -

Heroes Take eir Stands was commissioned by Tour Production Silkroad in honor of founding board members Charlie Campbell, monitor engineer Milo Beach, Merton Flemings, Judy Goldberg, Timothy Grassel, company manager Elizabeth ten Grotenhuis, Jill Hornor, Ted Levin, Ashley Martin, stage manager Yo-Yo Ma, and Anne Peretz, in partnership with UCSB Arts & Lectures, Cal Performances – UC Tour Management Berkeley, Philharmonic Society of Orange County, Mary Pat Buerkle, senior vice president and and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Per form - manager, artists & attractions, Opus 3 Artists ing Arts. Silkroad Staff Heroes Take eir Stands was developed in resi - Jeffrey Beecher, co-artistic director dence at the Juilliard School and Moody Center Eduardo A. Braniff, executive director for the Arts—Rice University. Silkroad is grateful Nicholas Cords, co-artistic director for their hospitality and support. Hannah Dardashti, program administrator Liz Keller-Tripp , producer & artistic programs Heroes Take eir Stands is funded, in part, by director generous support from the National Endowment Cristina Pato, learning advisor for the Arts and individual donors including Dr. Shane Shanahan, co-artistic director Hamid Shafipour. Jessica Shuttleworth, manager of digital Lori Taylor, acting deputy director & learning In-ear monitors for Heroes Take eir Stands director graciously donated by Shure. Jacqueline Worley, finance director

Creative Team Exclusive Management Bill Barclay, stage director Opus 3 Artists LLC Cristin Canterbury Bagnall, executive producer 470 Park Avenue South Aaron Copp, lighting designer and production New York, NY 10016 manager Jody Elff, sound designer Liz Keller-Tripp, producer Yichan Wang, g raphic designer

 PLAYBILL PROGRAM NOTES front “the oppressive state,” in King’s words, that Take eir Stands further—and we invite you terrorizes and surrounds them everywhere to continue doing so, first and foremost, as outside that building. King’s attempt to motivate a social act—at your dinner tables, and in and unleash action from a terrified populace your communities and workplaces. Additional causes an eruption of emotion—emotion re - resources and information can be found at lated to fear, anguish, recognition, and hope for silkroad.org/heroes. change. Composer Jason Moran uses sheng , piano, and taiko in a call-and-response relation - ship to capture the hymn, rhythm, and drama SILKROAD BIOGRAPHIES of King’s address and the crowd’s experience of it, while videographer Lucy Raven interprets Bill Barclay is the director of music at Shakes - the pressure and terror surrounding the actual peare’s Globe, where he has produced music church. is piece is titled Moderato 400 , adds for over 120 productions and 150 concerts. Moran, “because somehow we flatten the terror rough his company Concert eatre Works, of the South with images of rabid citizens when Barclay has created original programs for actors it is the moderate who have oppressed African and orchestras including the Boston Sym - Americans for 400 years—casually, with a phony , Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Holly - moderate foot on the necks of generations.” wood Bowl, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of London Sinfonia, Washington National Cathe- e Prince of Sorrows dral, and Tanglewood. He piloted the Candlelit is tale from Ferdowsi’s Book of Kings —the Concert series in the Globe’s Sam Wanamaker national epic of Persia—presents a conflict be - Playhouse and is the founder of the record label tween humanitarian and familial duty. Siavosh Globe Music. A recognized voice on the music has been propositioned by his step mother, the of Shakespeare, Barclay edited the recent study queen, and in her rage at his refusal, she accuses Shakespeare, Music, and Performance (Cam - him of rape. He chooses to ride his steed bridge University Press). through fire to prove his innocence. Emerging unscathed, he volunteers to lead his father’s Jeffrey Beecher pursues a varied musical career armies in war, and wins. e king later demands as both an energetic performer and educator. that his son kill the hostages handed over by the In addition to serving as one of Silkroad’s defeated as a guarantee of peace. Siavosh refuses inaugural co-artistic directors, he performs as and chooses to go into exile in Turan, where principal bass with the Toronto Symphony he is invited to join the royal family, and then Orchestra and currently is on the faculty of the betrayed and beheaded in an earth-rending Glenn Gould School of the Royal Conservatory con clusion. Composer Kayhan Kalhor and of Music. An active chamber musician, Beecher film maker and visual artist Hamid Rahmanian has enjoyed performing at venues including interpret the inner conflict and ultimate Bargemusic, the Chamber Music Society of heroism of Siavosh’s decisions with layers of Lincoln Center, Weill Recital Hall, Zankel Hall, both live and prerecorded music as well as 92Y, and Merkin Hall. He has also performed animated calligraphy and illustration. at festivals from the Bridgehampton Chamber Music Festival to the Marlboro Music Festival. Continuing the Conversation As artists, we rely on the curiosity and empathy Cristin Canterbury Bagnall ’s work as a pro - of audiences in order to practice our cra, ducer and administrator is driven by her belief convey meaning, and gather ourselves on a that the arts deepen our understanding of collective journey. at curiosity, however, our selves and others and bring together com- does not end on the final note of an evening’s munity across difference. Bagnall has been part performance. You may find you want to under - of Silkroad since its inception. Her executive stand or pursue the ideas explored in Heroes producer credits include Yo-Yo Ma’s Songs of Joy

 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

& Peace and Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad En - Jody Elff is a Grammy Award-winning audio semble’s Sing Me Home , both Grammy winners; engineer and sound designer. For 25 years and Morgan Neville’s documentary e Music he has worked with some of the world’s most of Strangers . Bagnall serves as a strategic adventurous artists in the pursuit of the ideal consultant to cultural institutions including representation of their sonic intention in music MusiCorps, a conservatory-level music rehabil - performances and recordings. His fine art i ta tion program that helps severely wounded sound works have been presented in galleries, warriors play music and recover their lives. museums, and public spaces internationally. Elff’s commercial work includes sound design Aaron Copp ’s recent design projects include and implementation for live television and lighting shows for Natalie Merchant, Mike corporate events, as well as architectural spaces. Birbiglia, Maya Beiser, Miami City Ballet, Eliot Feld, Jonah Bokaer, the Royal Ballet of Flanders, Multi-percussionist Haruka Fujii has won and others. He has worked extensively in the international acclaim for her interpretations of dance world, and in 2008 received his second contemporary music, having commissioned Bessie Award for Jonah Bokaer’s e Invention and performed numerous premiere works from of Minus One . Copp has had a long association important living composers. She has appeared with Merce Cunningham, designing such as a soloist with major orchestras including the pieces as Ground Level Overlay , Windows , and Munich Philharmonic, Netherlands Chamber Biped , the lighting for which also won a Bessie. Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Orch es tra Nationale de Lyon, and the NHK Violist Nicholas Cords serves as one of Sym phony Orchestra. She performs with her Silk road’s inaugural co-artistic directors. He is mother, Mustuko, and sister, Rika—both per - also a founding member of the string quartet cussionists—as the Utari Duo and Fujii Trio. Rider and a member of e Knights. Her first solo recording, Ingredients , was re - Cords performs internationally as an acclaimed leased in 2013 by New Focus Recordings. soloist and guest chamber musician. His recent solo recording, Recursions , features music e son of a musical family from Moscow, by ranging from Biber to his own compositions. way of Israel, violinist, composer, and producer A prize-winning violist in his student days at Johnny Gandelsman combines his classical the Juilliard School and the Curtis Institute, he training with a restless desire to reach beyond currently teaches viola and chamber music at the concert hall in exploring contemporary New England Conservatory. music. As a concert soloist and a founding mem ber of the quartet , Gan - Tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das is one of the few dels man has premiered dozens of new works Indian classical musicians to have collaborated and has released albums by e Knights, the with major symphony orchestras, string quar - Silkroad Ensemble, Brooklyn Rider, and others tets, and jazz musicians. Das is the founder of on his label, In a Circle Records. HUM (Harmony and Universality through Music), which promotes global understanding A recent recipient of a Artists through performance and education, and pro - Fellowship, violinist and composer Colin vides learning opportunities and scholarships Jacob sen focuses his multifaceted life in music for young, specially-abled artists to empower as a violinist and composer in three groups: the them to lead self-reliant lives. Das is trained Silkroad Ensemble; the string quartet Brooklyn in the centuries-old Indian tradition of Guru- Rider, which performs at venues from Carnegie Shishya Parampara, studying and living with his Hall to SXSW; and e Knights, an innovative Guru—Pandit Kishan Maharaj—and learning orchestra of which he is co-artistic director and practicing music as a way of life, more than (with his brother, Eric). He has also been just an art form. awarded an Avery Fisher Career Grant for his

 PLAYBILL ABOUT THE ARTISTS work as a soloist and has performed with or - the Aizuri Quartet, which received the Grand ches tras such as the New York Philharmonic Prize at the 2018 M-Prize Chamber Arts Com - and San Francisco Symphony. petition and the First Prize at the 2017 Osaka Inter national Chamber Music Competition in Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed , and was the string quartet-in-residence at virtuoso on the kemancheh . A native of Iran, the Metropolitan Museum of Art for its 2017 –18 born in the Kurdish city of , he season. e quartet’s debut album, Blueprint- was a musical prodigy who travelled through - ing , was released by New Amsterdam Records out Iran to perform and explore the music of its in 2018. many regions. Internationally, he has appeared as soloist with a variety of symphony orchestras Hamid Rahmanian is a New York-based Ira ni- and ensembles. Kalhor is co-founder of the an filmmaker and graphic artist who combines renowned ensembles Dastan; Ghazal: Persian his love of traditional Persian art forms with & Indian Improvisations; and Masters of Per- modern technology to create new works of art sian Music. His compositions are prominent in that visually bridge the gaps between East and Silkroad’s repertoire, and his recordings have West. His projects have focused on people and received four Grammy Award nominations. issues that are rarely covered in the mainstream media. In 2014, Rah manian was awarded a Ashley R. Martin has been a proud Silkroad John Simon Gug gen heim Fellow Award and artist since April 2018, joining the group began experi menting with shadow puppetry. through the US Northeast, Florida, West Coast, His 2016 multimedia stage production of and Asia tours. She is also a freelance music Feathers of Fire , an adaption of the love story of touring stage and production manager, event Zaul and Rudaben from the Shahnameh , toured show caller, and AEA union stage manager. inter nationally and received critical acclaim. Based in California, Martin enjoys spreading her time between the music, cor po rate, and Described as “rapturous and profound” by the theater worlds. New York Times , Aparna Ramaswamy is co- artistic director of Ragamala Dance Company Jason Moran , a pianist, composer and educator, and explores the dynamic tension between the grew up in Houston, Texas. He has recorded ancestral and the contemporary, highlighting with Blue Note Records, producing nine the fluidity between the secular and the ground breaking recordings over 18 years. spiritual, the human and the natural. She is a Moran created the scores for Ava DuVernay’s disciple of the legendary Bharatanatyam dancer Academy Award-nominated films Selma and Alarmél Valli. Ramaswamy is a recipient of a 13th . He is a 2010 MacArthur Fellow, 2016 Guggenheim Fellowship, a Research Fellowship Doris Duke Fellow, and 2017 Ford Foundation at the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Art of Change Fellow. Currently Moran is the (), a Doris Duke Performing Artist Award, artistic director for jazz at the Kennedy Center and a Joyce Award, among others, and has been and teaches at the New England Conservatory commissioned by Lincoln Center, Walker Art of Music. With his partner Alicia Hall Moran, Center, the American Dance Festival, and the he created the recording company Yes Records. Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi. Moran’s museum exhibition opens at the Whit- Museum in September. Lucy Raven is an artist and filmmaker. Cur - rently a fellow at the American Academy in Praised for her “radiant” and “expressive” per - Berlin, her work is grounded primarily in formances ( e New York Times ), cellist Karen animation and the moving image, though her Ouzounian received the S&R Foundation’s 2016 multidisciplinary practice also incorporates Washington Award and is at home in diverse installation, sound, and printmaking. She has musical settings. She is a founding member of had exhibitions and screenings internationally,

5 Thanks for putting art in the heart of the community

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©2019 Bank of America Corporation | AR64WX5V | ENT-211-AD ABOUT THE ARTISTS including at the Guggenheim Museum, New acoustic, amplified and electronic instru men - York; the Serpentine Gallery, London; MoMA tation performed through ensemble formats and PS 1, New York; Portikus, Frankfurt; influenced by improvisational aes thet ics and and the Tate Modern, London. Her 3D film ethnic musical traditions. She re ceived the Paul installation Curtains is currently on exhibit Merritt Henry Prize for excel lence in the musical at LACMA in Los Angeles, and an exhibition composition of stringed instru ments (2014); (with her moving image collective 13BC) opens the Ibermúsicas Latin American grant for sound at 80WSE at NYU in New York this June. A new composition with new tech nologies at CMMAS, permanent public artwork will open this Sep - México (2015); the Rolex Mentor and Protégé tember at the forthcoming Bauhaus Museum in Arts Initiative selected by Amer ican composer Dessau, Germany on the occasion of the 100th Philip Glass (2016); and the Goethe-Institut’s year of the school’s founding. She teaches at artist residency in Brazil (2017). Cooper Union School of Art in New York. Percussionist, composer, and arranger Shane Ahmad Sadri is a professor of sociology and the Shanahan has combined his studies of drum- James P. Gorter Chair of Islamic World Studies ming traditions from around the world with at Lake Forest College. He received his BA and his background in jazz, rock, and Western art MA degrees at the University of and his music to create a unique, highly sought-aer PhD from the New School for Social Research. style. He is one of Silkroad’s inaugural co-artistic Sadri is the author of Max Weber’s Sociology of directors, and has performed with Bobby Mc - Intellectuals and editor and translator (from Fer rin, James Taylor, Aretha Franklin, Philip Persian) of Reason, Freedom, and Democracy Glass, Alison Krauss, Chaka Khan, and Deep in Islam and (from Arabic) Saddam City. Sadri Purple, among others, and at the White House, has authored three books in Persian. His latest for President and First Lady Obama. He book is an abridged translation of the Epic of the fre quently hosts workshops and clinics at the Persian Kings, now in its fih printing. world’s leading universities and museums and collaborates actively with the dance, theater, Nomi Sasaki is a visual artist devoted to Chi- and yoga communities in the New York area, nese black ink tradition and animation. Her including several stints on Broadway. work has been featured in international festivals and venues from Art Basel Miami Week to Japanese-Danish performer and composer National Sawdust in Brooklyn. Her videos are Kojiro Umezaki , originally from Tokyo, is designed for performative environments renowned as a virtuoso of the shakuhachi , and seek the resignification of spaces through but his work also encompasses traditional and projected images. Each piece is designed con - technology-based music mediated by various sidering the spaces’ real dimensions, which forms of electronics. His recent commissioned involves the construction of small-scale models. works and producer credits include those for Inspired by puppetry, her process includes the Brooklyn Rider, Joseph Gramley, Huun Huur creation of miniature stages in its interaction Tu, and Silkroad. Umezaki is currently an with lights, objects, and projection. e result - associate professor of music at the University ing projected image is a multilayered visual of California, Irvine, where he is a core faculty composition that challenges the audience’s final member of the Integrated Composition, Im - perception of both spaces’ and performers’ prov i sation, and Technology (ICIT) group. dimensions. Yichan Wang lives for art that ruptures borders Pauchi Sasaki ’s interdisciplinary approach inte- and disquiets spirits. Originally from Beijing, grates musical composition with the design of she currently resides in Brooklyn, where she multimedia performances and the applica tion works in stage, production, and graphic design. of new technologies. Her compositions involve Multimedia and collaborative creation excites

7 ABOUT THE ARTISTS

her. rough her art, she welcomes those yet to became the first person to receive a master’s be named into the otherwise seamless surface degree in pipa performance from the Central of life. Conservatory of Music in Beijing. She is a fre quent collaborator with the Kaoru Watanabe is a Brooklyn-based com - and Shanghai Quartet, and has performed po ser and musician who specializes in the in recital and as soloist with major orchestras Japa nese shinobue flutes and taiko drums. around the world, regularly premiering new Watanabe was a performer and the artistic works. Wu Man has recorded more than 40 director of the internationally acclaimed Japa - albums, five of which have been nominated for nese taiko per forming ensemble Kodo and has Grammy Awards. worked as soloist with such artists as National Living Trea sure Bando Tamasaburo, jazz Born into a musical family, Wu Tong has pianist Jason Moran, and flamenco dancer appeared as soloist with the New York Phil - Eva Yerbabuena. In February 2018, Watanabe harmonic, London Sinfonietta, Chicago Sym - debuted as an or chestral soloist and composer phony Orchestra, and Hong Kong Phil har- with the Syd ney Symphony at the Sydney Opera monic Orchestra. He is the founding vocalist House. He is the featured taiko drummer and a of Lunhui (Again), the first rock band ever to musical advisor for the recent Wes Anderson appear on Chinese television. In 2008, he made film Isle of Dogs . his operatic debut in e Bonesetter’s Daughter (San Francisco Opera) and wrote the film score Pipa virtuoso and composer Wu Man is an to Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux . A ambassador of Chinese music, creating a new nominee for Best Crossover Album at Taiwan’s role for her lute-like instrument in both tradi - 2011 Golden Melody Awards, he was named tional and contemporary music. Brought up 2012 Musician of the Year by New York’s China in the Pudong school of pipa playing, Wu Man Institute.

7b PLAYBILL