Silkroad Ensemble's road leads to Indian Ranch with new leader and new compositions

Indian classical music tabla percussion player Sandeep Das didn't know Grammy Award-winning "Genius Grant" musician and vocalist Rhiannon Giddens when she was appointed the new artistic director of Silkroad Ensemble in 2020.

However, "I didn't know Yo-Yo Ma," Das recalled of the renowned cellist and founder of Silkroad Ensemble.

Das, who is also a composer and educator, came on board at the very beginning of the Silkroad Ensemble in 2000. It has drawn together performers and composers from more than 20 countries in Asia, Europe and the Americas.

What struck Das from the start in 2000 was that Ma is a "beautiful human being," he said.

Giddens has made the same impression. "It's been wonderful. A good human being first. She has a good heart, and everything else becomes easy."

Das is one of 13 Silkroad Ensemble artists Giddens is leading on its "Phoenix Rising" tour in July 2022 throughout the United States East coast.

Silkroad Ensemble will perform at Indian Ranch in Webster at 6 p.m. July 27 in a concert presented as part of the Summer@MW season by Music Worcester.

"Phoenix Rising" is the Ensemble’s debut tour with Giddens, and she is taking a cross-section of Silkroad’s award-winning compositions and arrangements and re-imagining them for today along with presenting three major new commissions by Silkroad artists.

One of these is by Das who has written his own musical adaptation of "Ekla Cholo Re” based on the famous poem by Rabindranath Tagore, the Bengali polymath who became the first non-white, non-European and the first lyricist to win the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1913. The poem was a favorite of Mahatma Gandhi.

"This past year, India suffered losses on a massive scale never seen before," Das said of COVID's impact on the country. "Within a few weeks, I and many people I know were suddenly reeling from the unexpected losses of family, friends, loved ones, mentors and some of our country’s most treasured musicians and artists."

He immediately thought of Tagore's poem when he was asked to write a new work for the Silkroad Ensemble.

"Where I am in my life I've become fascinated, completely inspired by Yo-Yo Ma (and his connecting music with social initiatives). Playing music for music's sake is good, but  how can you spread the message? This famous poem is very relevant  for the times. 'Even if nobody believes in you, keep walking. Even if it means walking alone, people will follow you.' Every paragraph is so powerful and so meaningful," Das said.

"The refrain states, 'If no one heeds your call, then walk alone' … Music, I believe, is an instrument of healing — a means to create awareness, a conversation unbounded by language, and a spark that can lead to change on a global level."

Every word of "Ekla Cholo Re” will be sung in the original Bengali by Giddens.

"There are millions and millions of versions (translations). I spent time working with Rhiannon. She has done such a good job."

Das' wife, whom he described as keenly observant and a tough judge about the arts ("oh boy, she's going to tell me how I didn't play well"), has been impressed by Giddens' pronunciation, he said. Indeed, he would be happy if Giddens sung "Ekla Cholo Re” in Bengali in India.

Since his debut concert at the age of 17 with legendary Sitar player Ravi Shankar, Das has built a prolific international reputation spanning three decades. Born in Patna, Bihar, India, he has collaborated with top musicians, ensembles, and orchestras from all over the world, and his original compositions have been performed in 50+ countries. He has also been featured on many recordings. In the spirit of Silkroad's social awareness, Das is the founder of Harmony and Universality through Music (HUM), a nonprofit organization in India that has promoted global understanding through music performance and provided learning opportunities and scholarships for visually-impaired children with artistic potential since 2009. His most recent project, Transcending Borders One Note at a Time, launched in 2020 to widespread international acclaim, seeks to harness the power of music to create positive social change.

Das, who now lives in Newton, is no stranger to Worcester. Among its college residences, the Silk Road Ensemble has been a regular visitor to the College of the Holy Cross. But Das was coming to Holy Cross to give master classes, perform, and has played with his own ensemble even before joining Silkroad Ensemble 21 years ago, he said.

In a 2015 interview with the Telegram & Gazette he recalled that he took his driver's license exam in Worcester because the state Registry of Motor Vehicles had an open spot while Boston's was booked for months. "I passed in one go."

He was with Silkroad when it performed in Mechanics Hall in 2015. "What a beautiful auditorium," he said.

Interviewed again by phone a few days ago he revealed a fondness for Worcester restaurants.

"I am not too far away. Worcester has some fantastic restaurants," he said.

Das has a pleasant and amusingly self-effacing way of talking, relating that when he saw Ma performing he was struck by "amazing playing" on "this big violin," only to be corrected and have it pointed out to him that Ma was playing a cello.

Still, Das has been known to say "no" about collaborating and it was no given that he would work with Ma and now Giddens.

"I always see if I like the musician. Back in India I'd say no (if it) didn't feel like a good person."

Giddens reached out to Silkroad Ensemble members online at first and acknowledged to Das that she did not know much about Indian classical music, he recalled. Das told her he didn't know too much about her music.

Giddens is a MacArthur Fellowship-winning songwriter, singer, and multi-instrumentalist accomplished in several genres, including folk and  jazz.

In 2021, Music Worcester presented Giddens in a virtual concert streamed from her home in Ireland with Francesco Turrisi, but July 27 will be her in-person regional debut.

"Phoenix Rising" will also feature new works by Silkroad Ensemble members Maeve Gilchrist (harp) and Kaoru Watanabe (shinobue — Japanese transverse flute), and new arrangements by Giddens, Colin Jacobsen, Edward Pérez, and Mazz Swift.

Ma had conceived of the idea of Silkroad as a model of cultural collaboration, making music and social and educational initiatives in 1998. The Sillkroad Ensemble, the musical component (originally styled as Silk Road Ensemble) was formed in 2000. It initially focused on instruments and traditions from along the historical Silk Road, but has reached out considerably further artistically.

Ma stepped back as artistic director 2017 but still has links with Silk Road. Co-artistic-directors held things together until Giddens' appointment.

Giddens led an online Silkroad Ensemble concert for Tanglewood in 2020 and last November made her live debut as artistic director at the Loeb Drama Center in Cambridge.

"I got to meet her personally. Her heart is in the right place. I'm looking forward to the tour," Das said.

He was being interviewed just before the "Phoenix Rising" tour was about to get underway with a performance July 16 at the Caramoor Center for Music and the Arts in Katonah, New York. Following its performance at Indian Ranch July 27, Silkroad Ensemble goes to Tanglewood July 28.

Das has also been performing recently as a duet with European classical music musicians on several European dates — and enjoying getting back to in-person live performances again since the pandemic lockdown receded.

"It's great. I've been traveling like crazy. We forget how much we need art and culture  in our lives," he said.

"More people are coming out to the auditoriums. It's the experience, just getting to the stadium is a different feel. For us, getting to see each other,  the communication, every neuron is firing on stage. And the audience, feeding off the energy of the fellow musicians and the audience. It's wonderful. Every musician, every combination."

During the pandemic he stayed close to home in Newton, but organized an online benefit concert to raise $50,000 for COVID relief efforts in India. "A drop in the ocean," he said.

Das also continued to teach privately, and found himself contacted by music schools around the world to give online lessons, including by a school in Melbourne, Australia.

Meanwhile, "I tried to be a good husband. Not to get kicked out of the house was the ultimate goal." He and his wife have been married 27 years.

While looking around the house he came across some early photographs of Silkroad Ensemble from about 21 years ago.

"I had lots more hair and black hair then," he said. "We were so much  younger."

But there's a saying in India that "music and musicians are like wine … they mellow," he noted.

"I definitely feel we have mellowed as musicians. And human beings," Das said.

(Editor's Note: This story has been amended to correct the year Sandeep Das joined Silkroad Ensemble.)

"Phoenix Rising": Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens - Presented by Music Worcester

When: 6 p.m. July 27

Where: Indian Ranch Amphitheatre, 200 Gore Road, Webster

How much:  $30 to $55. www.indiianranch.com

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Silkroad Ensemble's road leads to Indian Ranch with new leader and new compositions