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Silk Road Musicians Mike Block and Sandeep Das Perform Wednesday

Silk Road Musicians Mike Block and Sandeep Das Perform Wednesday

March 27, 2015

[UPDATE 3/31: This event has been canceled due to illness.] Next week, Silk Road musicians Mike Block and Sandeep Das will make the first in what the DePauw University School of Music looks forward to becoming a series of visits to Greencastle. On Wednesday, April 1, Block and Das will travel to Indiana to spend a day at DePauw that will culminate in a concert of music for cello, Indian tabla and voice, including original compositions and songs, classical pieces and arrangements of Indian folk music.

The event is offered in conjunction with the upcoming Global Musician Workshop, which will be taught by the Silk Road Ensemble, both projects initiated by the renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

The DePauw School of Music has been selected to serve as the host site for the inaugural Global Musician Workshop, which will take place June 8-12, at the Judson and Joyce Green Center for the Performing Arts. Wednesday’s appearances by two members of the famed ensemble will also be at the GCPA.

In addition to a 7:30 p.m. concert in Thompson Recital Hall, Block and Das will play and talk with students during the School of Music’s weekly 10:20 a.m. Wednesday Recital Hour, demonstrating and discussing how Silk Road’s spirit of intercultural musicianship -- learning from and making music with performers from different cultures -- works in practice. In the evening concert, audiences will experience what the two world-class musicians have created together.

“Mike Block is a first-class classical cellist, trained at Juilliard. He’s also one of the top ‘alternative styles’ string players on the scene today, renowned for his folk/rock/jazz playing,” says Eric Edberg, DePauw University’s Cassel Grubb University Professor of Music and founder and artistic director of the Greencastle Summer Music Festival. “Mike’s a composer and arranger, a brilliant concert organizer and an entrepreneur who runs his own summer camps. He brings together musicians from different musical cultures to create fascinating and engaging performances that represent the best of intercultural collaboration and co-creation.”

No wonder Yo-Yo Ma has called Block “the ideal 21st-century musician.”

“I’m a huge fan of Mike,” Edberg added, “and am very excited for Wednesday’s events.”

General admission for the Faculty Select series concert at 7:30 p.m. is $5; tickets for seniors, children and all students are free thanks to season sponsors Judson and Joyce Green ('74  & '75). To ensure that any person wishing to attend a performance is able to do so, a pay-what-you-can option is also available, online and on request. To obtain tickets, visit www.depauw.edu/music/tickets, or stop by or call the Green Center box office, (765) 658-4827.

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