Mike Block, cello, and Sandeep Das, tabla
Friday, Sept. 27, 2019
8:00 p.m., School of Music Recital Hall
Pioneering cellist Mike Block and tabla virtuoso Sandeep Das are members of Yo-Yo Ma’s esteemed Silk Road Ensemble. Like the Silk Road, their duo is a melding of East and West, celebrating cross-cultural musical connections and featuring two of the world’s most creative and masterful musicians. The duo will perform compositions from Western Classical and North Indian Hindustani traditions, adaptations of music from around the world, and several of their own original works.
Passionate about connecting communities through music, Block is at home in a wide range of musical styles, and has been hailed by Ma as the “ideal musician of the 21st Century.” He is among the first cellists to stand and move while playing, and was the first standing cellist to perform at Carnegie Hall, in a performance characterized by The New York Times as “Breathless … Half dance, half dare.”
Das, a 2019 Guggenhem Fellow, is one of the world’s leading tabla (north Indian drums) players. Like Block, he often creates his own music, and has been featured in concerts at Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Royal Albert Hall, and the Concertgebouw. Das is one of the few Indian classical musicians who has collaborated, performed with, and composed for major symphony orchestras, string quartets and jazz musicians.
