Three-time Grammy nominee Kayhan Kalhor is an internationally acclaimed virtuoso on the kamancheh, who through his many musical collaborations has been instrumental in popularizing Persian music in the West and is a creative force in today’s music scene. His performances of traditional Persian music and multiple collaborations have attracted audiences around the globe. He has studied the music of Iran’s many regions, in particular those of Khorason and Kordestan, and has toured the world as a soloist with various ensembles and orchestras including the New York Philharmonic and the Orchestre National de Lyon. He is co-founder of the renowned ensembles Dastan, Ghazal: Persian & Indian Improvisations and Masters of Persian Music.
Kalhor has composed works for Iran’s most renowned vocalists Mohammad Reza Shajarian and Shahram Nazeri and has also performed and recorded with Iran’s greatest instrumentalists. He has composed music for television and film and was most recently featured on the soundtrack of Francis Ford Coppola's Youth Without Youth in a score that he collaborated on with Osvaldo Golijov. In 2004, Kayhan was invited by American composer John Adams to give a solo recital at Carnegie Hall as part of his Perspectives Series and in the same year he appeared on a double bill at Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart Festival, sharing the program with the Festival Orchestra performing the Mozart Requiem. Kayhan was a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma and his compositions appear on several of the Ensemble’s albums.
Recognized as the world’s premier pipa virtuoso, Wu Man is a soloist, educator, and composer who gives her lute-like instrument — which has a history of more than 2,000 years in China — a new role in both traditional and contemporary music. She has premiered hundreds of new works for the pipa, while spearheading multimedia projects to both preserve and create global awareness of China’s ancient musical traditions. She has performed in recital and with major orchestras around the world, is a frequent collaborator with ensembles such as the Kronos and Shanghai Quartets and The Knights, and is a founding member of the Silkroad Ensemble. She has appeared in more than 40 recordings throughout her career, including the Silkroad Ensemble’s Grammy Award-winning recording Sing Me Home, featuring her composition “Green (Vincent’s Tune).” She is also a featured artist in the 2015 documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. Born in Hangzhou, China, Wu Man studied at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing, where she became the first recipient of a master's degree in pipa.
At age 13, she was hailed as a child prodigy and became a nationally recognized role model for young pipa players. She was the first Chinese traditional musician to receive the United States Artist Fellowship (2008) and the first artist from China to perform at the White House. In 2013, she was named Musical America’s Instrumentalist of the Year and, in 2021 she received an honorary Doctorate of Music from the New England Conservatory of Music. She is a Visiting Professor at her alma mater the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing and a Distinguished Professor at the Zhejiang and the Xi'an Conservatories.
Hailed as a “creator of myths with Houdini-like skills” (The Sydney Morning Herald), Sandeep Das is one of the leading Indian Tabla virtuosos in the world today. Debuting at the age of 17 with legendary Sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, he went on to establish a prolific international career that now spans more than three decades. He has collaborated with top musicians and ensembles from across the globe such as Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble, with whom he has performed for the past 21 years, as well as Paquito D’Rivera, Bobby McFerrin and orchestras like the New York Philharmonic, Boston Symphony and Chicago Symphony, among others.
A Grammy-winning musician and Guggenheim Fellow, Das’ groundbreaking new music projects sit at the crucible of ancient tradition and modern innovation, enchanting audiences worldwide with “flawless playing” (Songlines) and as a “roadmap for irresistible aural adventures” (Downbeat). His original compositions have been performed in over 50 countries including China’s Forbidden City Concert Hall, the Sydney Opera House and the Hollywood Bowl. He launched “Transcending Borders One Note at a Time” in 2020 to widespread international acclaim, which seeks to harness the power of music to create positive social change. Driven by a vision for a brighter future, Das is the founder of Harmony and Universality through Music (HUM), a nonprofit organization in India that has promoted global understanding through music performance and provided learning opportunities and scholarships for visually-impaired children with artistic potential since 2009. He is also an active public speaker, and has presented at The New York Encounter, The EG Conference, TEDx events, and multiple university residencies. In 2015, he established Das Tabla School, where he currently trains musicians from over six countries both online and in-person in Boston, MA.