Since 2000, the Silk Road Ensemble has been redefining classical music for 21st-century audiences. Representing a global array of cultures, Silk Road Ensemble members co-create art, performances, and ideas. Cellist Yo-Yo Ma established the nonprofit organization Silkroad and the Ensemble to explore the role of the arts in fostering cross-cultural understanding, deepening learning, and promoting innovation. Silk Road Ensemble performers and composers hail from more than 20 countries. Passionate about learning from one another’s traditions, these rooted explorers perform on a wide-range of worldly instruments. Under the artistic direction of Yo Yo Ma, these storytelling musicians celebrate the multiplicity of approaches to music from around the world. They also develop new repertoire that responds to the new realities of our global society. In engaging, high-energy performances, the Silk Road Ensemble draws on a rich tapestry of traditions that make up our shared cultural heritage, creating a new musical language — a uniquely engaging and accessible encounter between the foreign and the familiar that reflects our many-layered contemporary identities.