Description

Official Selection, 2015 Toronto International Film Festival
Official Selection, 2016 Berlin International Film Festival

Becoming a musician was never the plan for the young Yo-Yo Ma. And surely becoming one of the world’s pre-eminent celebrities of classical music was even more unthinkable. And so it’s most poignant that Ma had such clarion purpose when it came to assembling the Silk Road Ensemble, a collective of musicians from countries along the fabled trade route. For Ma, no currency or commodity is as powerful as music, and no trader as attuned to cross-cultural exchange than instrumentalists like Iran’s Kayhan Kalhor, China’s Wu Man, or Spain’s Cristina Pato. For over a decade, the ensemble has traveled the world as a microcosm of the global but also as a bold, utopic grazing away of borders.

Directed by Oscar-winner Morgan Neville (Twenty Feet from Stardom), THE MUSIC OF STRANGERS glides and circles around the dizzying, tradition-defying virtuosos of the Silk Road Ensemble. Rich in history, politics, and of course wall-to-wall music, the documentary is an absolute dream. What better way to wander away from home only to find it again, than in the longing notes of the Kamancheh or the wayfaring drones of a Galician bagpipe? In zones of displacement, exile, and migration, THE MUSIC OF STRANGERS wondrously captures the ravishing ways unexpected connections sprout from unexpected harmonies. –Brian Hu

Co-presented by:

 The Worldview Project

 Asian Business Association

 San Diego Chinese Women’s Association

 New Americans Museum

 San Diego-Yantai Friendship Society

With support from:

  Center for World Music

Director's Bio

Select Filmography
2007: Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story
2008: The Cool School
2013: 20 Feet from Stardom (Best Feature Documentary, 2014 Academy Awards)
2015: Best of Enemies (Official Selection, 2015 Sundance Film Festival)

Credits

Producer: Caitrin Rogers
Featuring: Yo-Yo Ma, Kinan Azmeh, Keyhan Kalhor, Wu Man

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