SILKROAD ENSEMBLE featuring Cécile McLorin Salvant

Kleinhans Music Hall is pleased to present SILKROAD ENSEMBLE featuring Cécile McLorin Salvant Wednesday, April 14 8:00 PM | Doors at 6:30 PM Main Hall FEATURING ARTISTS Cécile McLorin Salvant, vocals Maeve Gilchrist, harp Mazz Swift, violin Niwel Tsumbu, guitar Francesco Turrisi, frame drums, accordion Kaoru Watanabe, Japanese flutes and percussion ABOUT THE PROGRAM The Silkroad Ensemble is ecstatic to announce GRAMMY-winning vocalist and composer Cécile McLorin Salvant as the special guest for a limited run of performances that promise to be rich, surprising, and full of musical discovery. This bold collaboration began in 2023 with Salvant’s hauntingly original composition “Have You Seen My Man?” —a standout track on Silkroad’s American Railroad album, featuring Rhiannon Giddens and released on Nonesuch in 2024. The piece showcases Silkroad’s signature boundary-blurring artistry and group vocals—elements that will take center stage in this new program. Expect a powerful fusion of improvisation, tradition, and unexpected musical turns as Salvant joins the Ensemble to explore connections across cultures and histories. With family roots in Haiti and France, she brings a deeply personal perspective to the idea of cultural exchange—shaped by a lifelong experience of moving between languages, identities, and stories. For Salvant, Silkroad offers an exciting opportunity to engage with musical traditions beyond her own ones she’s eager to learn from, challenge, and reimagine. Salvant, a multi-disciplinary visual artist, notes “I make large hand-embroidered drawings on silk organza, which has influenced the way I make and think about music and the interplay between disciplines and mediums. I’m thinking about the ‘silk’ in ‘Silkroad’, about the connections between textile and song across cultures and throughout history.” “Cécile McLorin Salvant’s musical vocabulary is a marvel.” —Associated Press “Salvant is rapidly moving beyond the boundaries of jazz,…