From Mono to Multiculturalism

The issue of protecting and propagating traditional music has been paid extraordinary attention by Western musicians since the nineteenth century. In 1998, Yo-yo Ma established the Silk Road Project, a nonprofit foundation devoted to the living arts of people from the various cultures found on the historical Silk Road. In this project, many pieces of tradition music from these cultures have been transformed in new ways, allowing them to be performed and propagated among the diverse audiences of today’s multicultural context. This study aims to examine how Ambush from Ten Sides, a masterpiece of Chinese traditional music, was arranged and presented by the Silk Road Ensemble. My work will focus primarily on two issues: 1) What methods did the Silk Road Ensemble use to adapt this piece of traditional music; and 2) How do today’s audiences from both the West and the East receive and understand the adaptation?