'Music of Strangers' Melds Traditions, Explores Culture
Music of Strangers is much more than a film on a superstar world music ensemble. While the music is often intoxicating and brilliant, the questions and stories that arise from these musicians are the true beating heart of this film. As viewers, we are often asked to confront difficult cultural questions, such as: When musical traditions meld with others, are they then by definition compromised, or even bastardized?
Yo-Yo Ma, the world's most famous cellist and the ringleader of this superstar band, doesn't' think so. He's the one who had the idea years ago to experiment with musicians from cultures all along the Silk Road, thus melding traditional instruments from Asia and the Middle East with the compositional techniques of the West. The mission, for him, was to find his musical roots, and to better understand who he was as a musician, as someone who is both of the East and the West. His is an interesting journey, to be sure, but perhaps not the most interesting in the film.
That designation probably belongs to Kayhan Kalhor, a striking and wonderfully-mustachioed musician from Iran. He plays an ancient Persian string instrument called a Kamancheh, and his life as been one of struggle and tragedy. Yet with humor and candor, he tells us his story of fleeing Iran after the revolution, driving cabs in New York and striving all along to be the best Kamancheh player he could be, thus preserving his culture's musical tradition for his people and the world.
Of course, Ma and Kalhor are just two players in the Silk Road Project. Others, such as Syrian clarinet musician Kinan Azmeh and Galician bagpipe player Cristina Pato, also share what their music means to them: for the former, to connect to his now war-torn country; for the later, to keep the tradition of a small but proud people alive and growing. While goals of these musicians are different in the details, they are ye all, in some sense, the same. Filmmaker Morgan Neville does a fine job of keeping them distinct and yet showing how they harmonize.
Then there's the music, which, of course, is beautiful and somewhat strange. Even if one doesn't have a taste for tunes that smack of classical or something you might hear in a desert drum circle, it's easy to appreciate what the Silk Road performers are doing. It's particularly beautiful to see instruments that are pretty much totally foreign to Western music, like Kalhor's Kamancheh or Wu Man's pipa, a Chinese lute. Viewing the musicians together, virtuosoing in their own way, gives one a deep appreciation on how culture binds us to our pasts and offers new paths for creativity, expression and collaboration.
Music of Strangers is playing at the Uptown Theatre.
