American Railroad
Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens

Rhiannon Giddens, banjo/vocals
Mazz Swift, violin/vocals
Wu Man, pipa
Sandeep Das, tabla
Haruka Fujii, percussion
Shawn Conley, bass
Karen Ouzounian, cello/vocals
Kaoru Watanabe, Japanese flutes/percussion
Michi Wiancko, violin
Francesco Turrisi*, frame drums/accordion
Niwel Tsumbu*, guitar
Pura Fé Crescioni*, lap-steel guitar/voice
Yazhi Guo*, suona

*guest artist

Projections by Camilla Tassi

Under the leadership of 2023 Pulitzer Prize winner, the dynamic multi-instrumentalist Rhiannon Giddens, the Grammy-winning, genre-defying Silkroad Ensemble embarks on a new initiative that illuminates the impact of under-recognized voices in America’s expansion west. The project explores the creation of the Transcontinental Railroad through the contributions of African American, Chinese, Irish, Indigenous, and other communities, their cultures, and their music. Chinese traditional instruments like the guzheng, pipa, erhu, and qinqin are contrasted with the fiddle, bones, tambo, and banjo of Black musical traditions, and their Indigenous and Celtic counterparts. New compositions and commissions weave these disparate traditions together to tell a new version of the American story. As Giddens told the New York Times, “Silkroad has people from all over, and that’s what makes it such a great group to represent the American story, because that’s what the American story is. We are world music.”

This event is part of Cal Performances’ Illuminations: “Individual & Community” programming for the 2023–24 season.

Patron Sponsors: S. Shariq Yosufzai and Brian James

This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Nov 17, 2023, 8pm

Add to Calendar 11/17/2023 08:00 pm 11/17/2023 09:30 pm America/Los_Angeles American Railroad; Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens https://calperformances.org/events/2023-24/illuminations-individual-community/american-railroad-silkroad-ensemble-with-rhiannon-giddens/ Zellerbach Hall

Zellerbach Hall

Tickets start at $50

American Railroad
Silkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens

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Program Notes

View Program Book: Digital Program | Download PDF

Pre- and Post-Performance Illuminations Events

Pre-performance Panel: Memory, Identity, and Pastness: Considering the American Railroad

Time: 6:30pm–7:45pm
Location: Bear’s Lair 2465 Bancroft Way, only a few steps away from Zellerbach Hall’s front entrance
Free and open to the public; no tickets or advance reservations are required.

Join us before the performance for a free panel discussion that will provide fascinating context and thought-provoking frameworks for understanding the experience of individuals who built the transcontinental railroad. We bring together four UC Berkeley faculty from across campus, whose expertise spans modernism and early music, the history of American labor experiences and immigration policies, railroad poetry/creative writing, and the intersection of railroad technology and photography.

Dr. Alexander Benjamin Craghead, Moderator

Dr. Alexander Benjamin Craghead is a professor of American Studies at UC Berkeley. Craghead’s research, which focuses on the intersection of technology, representation, and landscape, has established him as one of the nation’s preeminent railroad scholars. He has produced multiple books of photography as well as curated a noteworthy exhibit on the railroad, and is interested in using his work to draw attention to those Native peoples who were displaced throughout the railroad project.

Dr. Cecil Giscombe, Panelist

Dr. Cecil Giscombe is professor and Robert Hass Chair in English at UC Berkeley, who specializes in creative writing and poetry. His recent project entitled “Railroad Sense” is a mixed-genre collection of writing that attempts to “address, partly synthesize, and—perhaps mostly—account for and trouble the intersections between some ideas pertaining to public transportation, color, landscape, and nature.”

Dr. Hidetaka Hirota, Panelist

Dr. Hidetaka Hirota is an associate professor of history at UC Berkeley, focusing on social and legal history as it relates to immigration in the United States. His recent work explores “the tension between nativism against foreigners and demand for their labor,” as well as the way regulations and prejudice around immigration impacted immigrants’ quality of life.

Dr. David Miller, Panelist

Dr. David Miller is a musician and musicologist, teaching in both American Studies and the music department at UC Berkeley. As a musicologist, Miller’s expertise spans modernist music as well as the culture and history surrounding its creation and reception in the United States.

Post-performance Community Conversation

Time: After the Performance
Location: Zellerbach Hall Mezzanine Lobby
Free to all ticket holders for the American Railroad performance.

Immediately following the performance of American Railroad, all attendees are invited to join us on the Zellerbach Hall mezzanine lobby to discuss and react to the performance in community with fellow audience members. This moderated conversation will offer the opportunity to collectively unpack the questions, emotions, and revelations you might carry following the performance, in an open and participatory format.

Facilitators: Alexander Benjamin Craghead & Mina Girgis