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| Silk Road Journeys: When Strangers Meet | 
 enlarge | Artists: Yo-yo Ma, Silk Road Ensemble
Label: Sony
Category: Music
List Price: $18.97
Buy New: $3.00
You Save: $15.97 (84%)
Buy New/Used/Collectible from $1.50
Avg. Customer Rating:  (27 reviews)
Sales Rank: 6814
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 5 x 0.5
MPN: 89782
UPC: 696998978225
EAN: 0696998978225
ASIN: B0000641CG
Release Date: April 16, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Silk Road student January 4, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
Each story is complete within itself and offers insight into the life and hard times. I found the stories very believeable.
Combining the strange music November 22, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Yo-Yo Ma's project to bring together the musicians from lands around ancient Silk Road has brought interesting result. I would like to praise the accompanying booklet (it is in English, German and French). My overall attitude towards this CD is, however, worse compared to the ensemble's second CD (Beyond the horizon). The "When strangers meet" failure is in its inconsistency, the styles are a bit too mixed and when listening I tend to skip 2 or 3 pieces.
The music starts with traditional vocals as would be expected. If the piercing voice bothers you at this point then such music style is not for you. Also the second song has vocals in some parts, otherwise it starts to be experimental and is inconsistent. Tracks 3 and 4 are more traditional, but 5 and 9 quite heavy, modern, serious music. Also 6 and 7 are totally out of place. This two are nice though (which one can hardly say for the other three Finnish folksongs that can be downloaded from Silk Road Foundation web page). So the track 8 gets lost in between, it's wild thing, a proper jewel with traditional string instruments. To me it represents the essence of the Silk Road idea. Track 11 was a total surprise, it has a Renaissance theme with those instruments (like Marco Polo homecoming), solos and ensemble playing intervenes beautifully. The CD finishes with a well-known theme from Crouching tiger hidden dragon soundtrack. Unfortunately this nice piece has a very short recording here.
 When Strangers Meet February 23, 2006
1 out of 41 found this review helpful
I never actually received "When Strangers Meet". What I actually received was "Beyond the Horizon" which I already own. I then needed to return "Beyond the Horizon". Someday I hope to actually own "When Strangers Meet". But I'll probably buy it at a CD store so I can actually see what I am purchasing.
 Hate the vocals; Love the instrumentals March 22, 2005
9 out of 27 found this review helpful
Hard to recommend this CD as the first few tracks are vocals of traditional music so bad as cause pain. Ma's playing is excellent and if you can skip the first few tracks, it is quite memorable.
3.8 Stars December 16, 2004
17 out of 17 found this review helpful
Personnel: Yo-Yo Ma - Cello and morin khuur. Siamak Aghaei - santur. Edward Arron - cello. Nicholas Cords - viola. Sandeep Das - tabla. Stephen Dunkel - trombone. Joel Fan - piano and percussion. Joseph Gramley - percussion. Colin Jacobsen - violin. Siamak Jahangiri - ney. Kayhan Kalhor - kemancheh and setar. Xu Ke - erhu. Ganbaatar Khongorzul - vocals on one track. Wu Man - pipa. Edgar Meyer - upright bass. James Pugh - trombone. Todd Reynolds - violin. John Rutherford - trombone. Shane Shanahan - tabla. Mark Suter - percussion. Leo Suzuki - viola. Wu Tong - sheng. Yang Wei - pipa.
This disc is a lovely intersection for various musical ideas. As you probably know by now, the idea was to get a bunch of great musicians together from along various points of the historical Silk Road. Along with goods and spices, there was also a fair exchanging of less tangible things, such as art, music, ideas, etc...
That's what this disc is about. "Western classical music" is not the only classical music out there, and although historically the people most likely to be traveling the silk road, exchanging ideas and playing together would have been folk musicians, the concept still stands on its own here. Of particular resonance (at least to me) are the "Chinese" and "Iranian" tracks. I put those in quotes only because while it's true that all these songs (or at least their performances here) are hybridized, most of them still do have what could be called a "dominant influence" by one culture or another.
This disc will no doubt be heard differently by people of different backgrounds with these musics. For people who really never delve into "world music", this will no doubt sound quite "exotic". For others who have alot of experience with various musics from around the world, it may be a bit movie soundtrackish. I fall into the latter category in terms of experience, but I still really like this album. While some of it does have that orchestral sweep, and that sort of tone and dramatic movement that you can imagine going along with certain types of movie scenes, it's still quite often very good music in that way. There are a bunch of lovely melodies and great arrangements... particularly with respect to the Chinese and Iranian tracks. =)
All these musics are definitely being presented here through a Western Classical filter. Oftentimes that is not the sort of thing that will work at all, but I think here it is largely successful. I tried to catch one of these concerts but by the time I heard about them locally for me, they were sold out.
I give a big thumbs up to Yo-Yo Ma for his continued branching out and away from the often stiff and detached (from the rest of the world) world of Western Classical music. The new influx of ideas, whether they be from playing with Mark O'Connor or Kayhan Kalhor, have helped Ma's playing and level of emotional depth immensely. Simply put, right now he is 20 times the musician he was even 10 years ago when he was still only in the Western Classical world.
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