Performing Cosmopolitanism in the Silkroad
Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan
Orchestra
Thesis submitted for Master of Arts in Music Studies
Universiteit van Amsterdam
Table of Contents
Introduction 2
Chapter 1: Cosmopolitanism and Music 8
Cosmopolitanism and Dialogue 8
Creating Cosmopolitan Projects 14
Chapter 2: Performing Cosmopolitanism 25
Imagining Difference 26
Cosmopolitan Practices 30
Performing Cosmopolitanism 33
Chapter 3: Cosmopolitanism as a Strategic Resource 51
Conclusion 61
Addendum 63
Introduction
Amidst the proliferation of scholarship that challenges and goes beyond
national-frameworks, and the rise of studies on transnationalism, diaspora, globalization, border-crossing and other related phenomena, cosmopolitanism has emerged as an appealing alternative to the narratives of nationalism and globalization. The etymology of
“cosmopolitanism” is from the Greek kosmopolites, meaning roughly “citizen of the world.” This term was associated with the Greek philosophers Cynics (particularly Diogenes) and the Stoics, in which they used it as an alternative to the primary means of identification through a city or place of origin. As “citizen of the world,” Gillian Brock identifies two theses of 1 cosmopolitanism. The first thesis is one of identity, in which being cosmopolitan means being “marked or influenced by various cultures.” The second one is of responsibility, in which cosmopolitanism means maintaining a certain responsibility not just to the locally affiliated, but beyond to those far and unknown. Cosmopolitanism has been prevalent throughout European 2 history, particularly prominent in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and Jacques Derrida. Cosmopolitanism as a normative philosophy is not only found in the “West,” but as Gerard Delanty notes, is prevalent in the philosophy of India and China. Elaine Sandoval notes that the 3 Buddhist bodhisattva is paradigmatic of cosmopolitanism. 4
In the 1990s, scholars from various disciplines started to reexamine cosmopolitanism as a useful critical concept, in part by creating a “new cosmopolitanism” that repudiates the baggage it has accumulated throughout its Western philosophical history. Sarah Collins and Dana Gooley identify one of the main catalysts of this revival of cosmopolitanism as Martha Nussbaum’s article on cosmopolitanism, in which she was “roundly criticized for attempting to legitimize a 5 form of Enlightenment universalism without adequately accounting for its tainted imperialist
1Gillian Brock, “Cosmopolitanism,” in The Oxford Handbook of World Philosophy ed. By William
Edelglass and Jay L. Garfield (May 2011), 2.
2 Brock, 2.
3 Gerard Delanty, “Not All is Lost in Translation,” Cultural Sociology 8, no. 4 (2014): 375.
4 Elaine Sandoval, “The Ensemble in Educating Cosmopolitanism,” In The 9th Annual Soka Education Conference, Aliso Viejo, California, February 16-17, 2013: 78.
associations.” As a consequence, there was a whole slew of criticisms that scholars attempted to 6 address in a “new cosmopolitanism.” One such criticism was of cosmopolitans as being
“rootless,” and owing neither allegiance nor responsibility to any nation. This was addressed by 7 Kwame Anthony Appiah, who argued in “Cosmopolitan Patriots” that cosmopolitanism does not preclude patriotism. Other criticisms of cosmopolitanism are summarized by David T. Hansen 8 as “naive utopianism, political aloofness, uncritical universalism, moral rootlessness, disguised ethnocentrism, and elitist aestheticism,” and that it “aspires to be too many things to too many people.” These criticisms will be further addressed and problematized throughout this thesis. 9
The revival of cosmopolitanism in scholarship included the field of musicology as well. As Collins and Gooley notes, much of musicology has been “moving in a cosmopolitical direction” without explicitly referencing cosmopolitanism. This includes challenging national 10 frameworks used in musical historiography (as in opera) or identifying cosmopolitanism in 11 musical history, to understanding how cosmopolitan sensibilities could be generated in 12 international music events. Jan Ling’s article, “Is ‘World Music’ the ‘Classic Music’ of our 13 Time?” does not explicitly mention cosmopolitanism, but by identifying similar economic as 14 well as ideological impetus behind both “classic music” and “world music,” he intentionally or
6 Sarah Collins and Dana Gooley, “Music and the New Cosmopolitanism: Problems and Possibilities,” The Musical Quarterly 99 (2017): 143.
7 Brock also notes that such negative connotations have been associated with the Jews and the Bolsheviks,
“who, at one time, were considered to be dirty or foreigners, a threat to the community's purity,” 2.
8 Appiah, Kwame Anthony, “Cosmopolitan Patriots,” Critical Inquiry 23, no. 3 (Spring 1997): 617-39. 9 David T. Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies Without a Net: Interpreting Cosmopolitanism,” Studies in Philosophy and Education 29, no. 2 (2010): 151.
10 Collins and Gooley, 144.
11 Collins and Gooley cite where Michael Tusa how the opera by Weber, Der Freischütz, is more so
“cosmopolitan” in style than it is a wholly German opera; likewise, they also cite Carolyn Abbate and Roger Parker note that the national styles bear fluid borders that change throughout history, and indeed they serve more as historiographic tools; 144-5.
12 Such as Jillian Heydt-Stevenson and Jeffrey N. Cox reframing Romantic nationalism as “Romantic
Cosmopolitanism,” and Magaldi, “Cosmopolitanism and World Music in Rio de Janeiro at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” 329-30; cited in Collins and Gooley, 147, 151.
13 See for example: Vassiliki Lalioti, “‘Stay in Synch!’: Performing Cosmopolitanism in an Athens
Festival,” Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture 1, vol. 5 no. 2 (2013): 131-151; Lisa Mccormick, “Tuning in or turning off: performing emotion and building cosmopolitan solidarity in international music competitions,”
Ethnic and Racial Studies 12 (2014): 1-20.
14 Ling, Jan, “Is ‘World Music’ the ‘Classic Music’ of our Time?” Popular Music 22, no. 2 (May 2003):
not has identified the cosmopolitan sensibilities behind both, as well as point out how cosmopolitanism has been used as part of an economic strategy.
Ling starts off with an anecdote where a conversation with his local “world music” shop owner made him realize that the patrons of the store were well-to-do, middle-aged,
academically- and progressively-minded. This reminded Ling of the eighteenth-century noblemen who toured the world of Europe and brought back new and different music from southern parts of Europe during the Grand Tour. He finds in common how both classic music 15 and world music were developed out of a mix of different styles. These styles, sourced from “folk music” from different parts of Europe and the world, were subsumed into a more popular and dominant style of the time. The concept of world music and classic music were in part 16 driven by marketing, in which “Classic music was launched from the newly born capitalistic market, world music linked to the global economy and global distribution of products.” While 17 both repertoires of music are considered to be a “mixture” of different styles, classic music has gained prominence and popularity throughout history and academia as being “classical,” and has become its own style, particularly known as the Viennese classic style (with the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven). But Ling implies that this is only a matter of time with world music, in which it might become a “new language” on a global level, as the classic music has throughout Europe. But most important of all is that Ling concludes with an emphasis on what I perceive 18 to be the cosmopolitan impetus in common in both repertoires of music:
[World music] refers to a form of music which is enjoyed by a very sophisticated young middle-class public, who combine their musical interest of new sounds from different parts of the world with a progressive interest in what's on in politics, economics, etc., many of whom are engaged in the peace move environment movements, etc. It is similar to the ideology of the Enlightenment at the end of the eighteenth century. 19
The interest in difference and the desire to make the world a better place is very prevalent in cosmopolitan thought, and it is often expressed through music.
15 Ling, 235.
16 This would be eighteenth-century popular Italian music for classic music, and twentieth-century rock for
world music; Ling, 237.
17 Ibid., 239. 18 Ibid., 236. 19 Ibid., 239.
As a pianist with a eurogenic classical music background, I truly believe that my
education and experience in this field, and my experience as a musician, has played a big part in influencing my own sense of cosmopolitanism. But perhaps the other half of the influence can be attributed to my experience growing up as Chinese-American and going to school in New York City. I have always felt an affinity with the repertoire of eurogenic classical music, perhaps because I have been learning it since I was young. Or, as Elaine Chang Sandoval has articulated, it could also be because of the feeling of affiliation that I felt by being a part of a community of musicians, when, despite growing up in a diverse city, and through images purported in the American media, I have also felt a sense of isolation and non-belonging. On the other hand, growing up in what I felt to be a bicultural experience (Chinese and American, but also much more, because, you know, New York City), reconciling and navigating those two experiences has also allowed me to view diversity and difference positively, and I believe this was what instilled in me a desire to learn about (cultural) difference. Thus, as a musician, I believe in the so-called power of music to enact social change, at least by instilling or teaching cosmopolitan sensibilities.
As a scholar, I am skeptical of such claims, and would like to explore further the
relationship between cosmopolitanism and music. After all, much research has shown that music is not inherently powerful nor peaceful, and has often been used for conflict and war. Further, there is already much scholarship showing that music has been privy to political agendas and have been used in diplomacy and politics, and cosmopolitanism is not exempt. Thus, in this thesis I would like to first begin exploring the relationship between music and cosmopolitanism by understanding how music has been used to enact cosmopolitan goals and agendas through the Silkroad Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. I first heard of these ensembles through the fame of founders of the ensembles, who are Yo-Yo Ma, and Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said respectively. As highly publicized ensembles that have been active for almost two decades, there is a good amount of research available. Furthermore, these two ensembles contrast in ways that their juxtaposition can offer a richer understanding of how differing musical aspects can relate to cosmopolitanism.
Jeffrey and McFarlane notes that cosmopolitanism can be a set of imaginaries and practices that act as a strategic resource for expanding opportunities and consolidating power. 20 As publicized performing ensembles, the Silkroad Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are not only performing music, but their ideologies of cosmopolitanism. This is supported by the research of Harm Langenkamp and Rachel Beckles Willson, who studied the role of ideological narratives in the Silkroad and the Divan respectively. Drawing from their research amongst others, I aim to understand how the Silkroad and the Divan perform cosmopolitanism as a set of imaginaries and practices, and how the performance of
cosmopolitanism is as a strategic resource to extend opportunities, consolidate power, and further other agendas.
Chapter 1 will define cosmopolitanism drawing on the definitions of Gerard Delanty and David T. Hansen, both who sought to disavow cosmopolitanism from its baggage in order to make it more useful. Defining cosmopolitanism will help us examine the two ensembles in light of cosmopolitanism in various respects. This chapter will also look at how the founding of the ensembles can be attributed to “authorship” of Yo-Yo Ma, Edward Said and Daniel Barenboim, as exemplary of the responsiveness and agency that is characteristic of cosmopolitanism.
Cosmopolitanism is also characterized by a dialectical tension from the paradoxical dedication to the ideals of unity and diversity, the new and the old, the strange and the familiar, the universal and the particular. Chapter 2 will examine the Silkroad and the Divan as a set of cosmopolitan imaginaries and practices. I will examine how difference is imagined through ensemble membership, and how unity is imagined through repertoire and the ensemble. This chapter will conclude with how these aspects contributes to the performance of cosmopolitanism in the Silkroad and the Divan.
Chapter 3 will look at how the performance of cosmopolitanism is used as a strategic resource to further various agendas of different agents, which can include expanding
opportunities or consolidating power. These agendas can range from cultural diplomacy to personal agendas of career advancement. I do not want to argue that music does not bring about cosmopolitanism, nor that cosmopolitanism should not be an aspiration. Rather, I want to show
20 Craig Jeffrey and Colin McFarlane, “Performing Cosmopolitanism,” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 26 (2008): 420, http://doi.org/10.1068/d2603ed.
how ideologies are often used to further certain (and sometimes conflicting) agendas despite their perception as being above politics. And as a strategic resource, cosmopolitanism can become counterproductive by exacerbating the problems that it is addressing.
By examining these questions, I would like to understand why music seems to be so appealing to the cosmopolitan mindset. How do musical projects engage cosmopolitanism, and how does both music and cosmopolitanism collectively work towards ideology and other agendas? And if we are to understand cosmopolitanism as a human or moral ethos and as an ethical way of life, how can we further understand the role music can play in instilling cosmopolitanism sensibilities (and to whom)?
Chapter 1: Cosmopolitanism and Music
Cosmopolitanism and Dialogue
Cosmopolitanism has been researched and employed in a variety of ways, so much so that it has been criticized for its “aspir[ation] to be too many things to too many people.” There 21 are different “types” of cosmopolitanisms, such as political, economic, moral, with different qualifiers, such as weak and strong, vernacular, rooted, discrepant, etc. Negative connotations of cosmopolitanism also abound, especially with its associations of elitism, universalism,
rootlessness and being morally abject. However, to David T. Hansen, the myriad ways in which cosmopolitanism can be used and applied to different disciplines and studies denote “neither cacophony nor conceptual confusion, but rather serious interest in illuminating significant aspects of the human prospect today.” It demonstrates the adaptability and utility of the 22 concepts, and it has been pointed out that “cosmopolitanism is most meaningful in practice, in context, and in the very specificity that the term seems to avoid. It is perhaps most meaningful in its applied localities; each instance of its manifestations belies the difficulties of its universal aspirations.” In fact, to acknowledge the multiplicity within cosmopolitanism can be considered 23 a cosmopolitan act. In order for cosmopolitanism to be useful as an analytical concept, the
definition must be narrowed down.
Gerard Delanty and David T. Hansen have attempted to outline certain specifics of cosmopolitanism to attempt to alleviate the baggage that it has accumulated over the years. I have drawn on their definitions to attempt to come to a more specific understanding of
cosmopolitanism, one that can be useful analytically. The type of cosmopolitanism I would like to engage with is cosmopolitanism as an orientation or an attitude, or what Delanty identifies as a type of normative moral philosophy. Cosmopolitanism is difficult to identify in the “everyday,”
21 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 151. 22Ibid., 152.
especially from the many different “dispositions and attitudes human beings express in the daily vicissitudes of life.” Delanty gives a base description of normative cosmopolitanism as 24
about the value of taking into account the perspective of the other and placing oneself within a wider whole, which can generally be taken to be the world, as indicated by the Greek term ‘cosmos’, meaning the world community as opposed to a more narrow definition of community… However, the central idea of cosmopolitanism remains,
namely the claim that individuals and the groups to which they belong have obligations to others beyond their immediate context. 25
This base definition of cosmopolitanism is very general, and makes apparent how the concept of cosmopolitanism can applied to so many different fields of study. Hansen further identifies cosmopolitanism as “the capacity to fuse reflective openness to the new with reflective loyalty to the known,” while Delanty adds that it “leads to processes of self-transformation arising out of 26 the encounter with others in the context of global concerns.” As Hansen suggests, the 27
applicability of cosmopolitanism as a concept lie in emphasis. Using Hansen’s and Delanty’s definitions, I would like to create working definition of cosmopolitanism as a normative
orientation or philosophy defined by an openness to a transformative and productive engagement with the other through a reflective and critical negotiation of dialectical tensions. This definition will be explicated below.
Cosmopolitanism is not to be confused with globalization and internationalism and other synonymous phenomena. Rather, cosmopolitanism can be seen as a reaction to these phenomena, as a normative philosophy arising out of the tensions that occur from the “the encounter of the global with the local or national,” and “it exists in relations of tension and in transformative dynamics.” The encounter between the global and the local can be reframed as the encounter 28 with the other, and such encounters can result in tensions arising from the relationality between the self and the other. Hansen argues that cosmopolitanism should not be considered a “new identity” that replaces another one, such as a national identity, but
24 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Education: Philosophy for Educators in Our Time,” Religious Education
112, no. 2 (2017): 212.
25 Delanty, “Not All is Lost in Translation,” 375. 26 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 153.
27 Gerard Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” Revista CIDOB d'Afers Internacionals 82/83 (September
2008): 218.
as an orientation toward the affairs of life in which a person comes to grips with and holds his or her identity (or identities) in a kind of generative or productive tension with those of other people …the narrative tension in a fine novel, film, poem, or theatrical performance that draws us in rather than repels us.” 29
These tensions can also be viewed in terms of modernity, and as such, have been articulated by Delanty as tensions between the global and the local, and the universal and the particular. 30 Hansen has also articulated the tensions as between the old and the new, and between multiculturalism and pluralism. 31
Cosmopolitanism as a response to the tensions between the global and the local then is conscious of the issues of power dynamics. Thus one of the main tenets of cosmopolitanism is the negotiation between these dialectical forces in a reflective and dialogic manner rather than a firm belief in one or the other. Delanty articulates this as a sort of mediating aspect of
cosmopolitanism:
I see cosmopolitanism as offering a mid-way position: it defends certain universal capacities in human societies as to how they seek answers to certain questions, while recognizing that the ways in which they pose the questions and find solutions will be influenced, but not determined by, cultural context, as contextualists would argue, and nor, as universalists would require, with the same outcome, as different justifications and outcomes are possible. For these reasons, then, cosmopolitanism is both a pluralizing phenomenon as well as one that preserves a relation to unity. 32
What Delanty identifies in this passage is that the universalism of cosmopolitanism lies the rational capabilities of human beings to be reflective and critical. This is reflected in Hansen’s modifier to his definition of cosmopolitanism as the capacity to combine “reflective (rather than naïve) openness to the new with reflective (rather than dogmatic) loyalty to the known.” A 33 “dogmatic loyalty to the known” would imply that there are set, unmoving principles to abide by, which would go against the idea of contingency and fluidity of cultures and identity. And “naïve openness to the new” implies a type of complacent and uncritical attitude. Thus, it is important to note that cosmopolitan universalism is “procedural in substance rather than foundational”
29 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Education,” 212. 30 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 221. 31 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 156.
32 Delanty, “Not all is Lost in Translation,” 377. 33 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 157.
(Delanty) , and that “cosmopolitan takes form in 34 ongoing reflection, appreciation, and criticism concerning what is universal” (Hansen). In other words, in order for cosmopolitanism to be 35 critical, the dialectical tension must be maintained through constant reflection and negotiation. This is especially crucial because cosmopolitanism is based on the belief that cultures and identities are always fluid and in constant flux. The constantly evolving and transforming nature of cultures and identities lead to a pluralizing force in cosmopolitanism, unified by the universal capacity of human beings to be constantly reflective and critical of the tensions that arise.
The process of negotiating tensions leads to the potential for self-transformation. Delanty identifies this possibility as occurring through deliberation and the dialogic act:
Identifying cosmopolitanism with self-transformation in the light of the encounter with others in responses to the challenges of globality, it is possible further to specify it as a condition that occurs through deliberation. It is through deliberation, as Habermas has argued, that hitherto assumptions are revised in light of the perspective of the other. In this sense cosmopolitanism is dialogic but also critical. 36
What role does dialogue and the dialogic process play in cosmopolitanism? Dialogue does not just have to refer to verbal dialogue, but it can refer to the nature of engagement between people, i.e. in a musical dialogue, or a dialogic negotiation of difference. Hansen notes that
bias, prejudice, presupposition, or assumption is a necessary ground for any dialogical act. Otherwise such an act cannot get under way and persons remain mute before the world. People necessarily speak from who or what they have become up to that moment. 37
Dialogue then necessarily involves an expression from one person, and such an expression necessarily comes from a place of biases as made up from that person’s past experiences. Dialogue has been defined by Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault as an exchange of
information and communication that is both “reciprocal and multidirectional.” As a reciprocal 38 act, dialogue and dialogic acts involve both expressing oneself and listening to the expressions of
34 Delanty, “Not all is Lost in Translation,” 376.
35 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 162; my own emphasis. 36 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 219.
37 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity: New Modes of Educational Practice in Globalizing
Times,” Curriculum Inquiry 44, no. 1 (2014): 10.
38 Geoffrey Cowan and Amelia Arsenault, “Moving from Monologue to Dialogue to Collaboration: The
Three Layers of Public Diplomacy,” The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 616, 1 (2008): 18.
the other. Dialogue then can be considered a manifestation of the need to be heard and its solution, which according to Cowan and Arsenault is an important in diplomacy:
While there has been very little, if any, experimental research on the impact of dialogue in relation to public diplomacy, a century of communication research demonstrates that the need to be heard represents an almost universal human characteristic. 39
Dialogue, as satisfying the need to be heard and the desire for expression, is crucial not only to diplomacy, but to all relationships in general. If we look at dialogue as an interaction between a self and the other (defined as something unfamiliar and/or different), then we can further
understand how dialogue is crucial to cosmopolitanism by affecting the relationship between the self and the other.
Cowen and Arsenault observe that participating in dialogue can impact the viewpoint of those involved towards the other:
Democratization scholars also consistently find that individuals are more likely to feel favorably toward those with opposing viewpoints and consider political outcomes as fair, if not correct, if they have the opportunity to engage in discussion and debate. 40
This happens perhaps because having one’s voice heard, and having the opportunity to willingly negotiate with the new information they are receiving from the other is affirming. In fact, the willingness to participate in a dialogue and having that reciprocated is enough to generate goodwill on all sides towards the other. This reciprocality is part of a trust that builds in new relationships. As such, Cowen and Arsenault observe that “the very act of exchanging
information, or illustrating a willingness to exchange information, can lay the groundwork for deeper attachments,” because 41
a willingness to listen and to show a respect for thoughtful, alternate voices may help to ameliorate conflicts, or at least facilitate understanding of positions taken by helping participants to articulate their policies in more easily understandable terms. 42
Thus dialogue can also lead to a state of mutual understanding. This mutual understanding also means an acknowledgement of the viewpoint of the other, which according to Delanty is a crucial first step in cosmopolitanism. 43
39 Cowan and Arsenault, 19. 40 Ibid.
41 Ibid., 18. 42 Ibid., 19.
While the formal definition of dialogic can refer to something that is dialogue-like, the term is often associated with Mikhail Bakhtin’s concept of dialogism. Thus, dialogic is also taken to mean an interaction between a self and the other where meaning is negotiated, and neither side is coerced or forced into an artificial synthesis. For Hansen, a “cosmopolitan-minded dialogue does not require persons to hammer out fixed metaphysical agreements about the nature or condition of humanity.” The concept of dialogism is present in cosmopolitan thought, or 44 perhaps dialogism is an aspect of cosmopolitanism. Both show an openness to difference without the need to subsume one side in another or to force a synthesis between them.
Participating in dialogue and dialogic interaction with the other can result in a
transformation. This transformation is not a coerced agreement or synthesis by dominating the other side. Rather, it is a reflective transformation of the self achieved through a willingness to listen to the other, in which the new knowledge shifted self-understanding away from the biases and prejudices that started as the departure point of the dialogic act. This can lead to a new perception of not only the other but the self, and the relationship between the self, the other, and the collective whole (whether a community or the world). These new relationships then also contribute to the ever-changing self. It is no wonder that 45
Scholars in the disciplines of communication, social psychology, and political science offer a range of evidence that dialogue, under the right conditions, can be integral to bridging social barriers and fostering or improving goodwill across groups. 46
Dialogue and dialogic acts are means in the mutual participation on all sides in the negotiation of differences can lead to a goodwill in forming new relationships. And this is especially true when there is no pressure to subsume the differences into a synthesis, which would risk erasing the difference. The new relationships can lead to new understanding of the self and of others.
Finally, the development of goodwill can lead to the sustenance of the cosmopolitan openness to difference and the other, and the continued participation in further dialogue, or what Delanty
44 Hansen, “Chasing Butterflies,” 162.
45 This is also understood by Hansen: “... in generating relations with self, other, and world, people bring
into being new beings: namely, themselves, again however modest the transformations in personhood may be in each particular moment;” “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 7.
calls the “the creation and articulation of communicative models of world openness in which societies undergo transformation.” 47
Creating Cosmopolitan Projects
An aspect of cosmopolitanism that is both heavily emphasized by Delanty and Hansen is the creative agency inherent in the universal capacity of humans to problem solve. Hansen describes through viewing human beings as “morally creative rather than merely created
creatures.” In this section, I want to view how Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said 48 acted with “creativity” by founding the Silkroad Ensemble and the West-Eastern Divan
Orchestra. By doing so, they acted with responsiveness rather than mere reactiveness to create new “communicative models of world openness in which societies undergo transformation” through music. I would also like to put the actions of Ma, Barenboim and Said into further focus by looking at them through a perspective inspired by literary cosmopolitanism, which is
described by Collins and Gooley:
Studies of literary cosmopolitanism, then, zoom in at the level of the imaginary and the aspirational. They thrive on a recognizably Western and elite notion of authorship in which the author is a kind of intellectual—thinking about, reflecting upon, and
prospectively reimagining the world through the medium of fiction, and from within a certain kind of tradition. The author-centered approach… gives access to the conscious and reflective element that distinguishes cosmopolitanism from other kinds of global relationality and from empirically accessible processes of stylistic hybridization. 49 Collins and Gooley’s emphasis on authorship puts into perspective the founding of the Silkroad and the Divan as part of the deliberate as well as “conscious and reflective element that distinguishes cosmopolitanism.” Like literary cosmopolitanism studies, I would like to focus on cosmopolitanism at the “level of the imaginary and the aspirational” as reflected in the
authorship of the founders. What specific aims did they intend to achieve through the musical ensembles, and how? I will examine the rhetoric used to describe the ensembles by both media
47 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 222.
48 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 4. 49 Collins and Gooley, 147… 148.
and the ensemble members and founders, to understand how the ensembles aspires towards and imagines cosmopolitanism.
In the “author-centered” approach then, we shall first focus on the “authors.” Yo-Yo Ma, Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said can all be described as cosmopolitan individuals in a dual sense: one is through Brock’s definition of the identity-thesis of cosmopolitanism, in which they are marked by various cultures, and the other as having a cosmopolitan orientation or outlook. At the very least, they can be described with hyphenated-nationalities (as Chinese-American,
Argentinian-Israeli, and Palestinian American). The founders’ respective backgrounds and history of international mobility provide conditions amenable to developing cosmopolitanism. And not coincidentally, they all had musical backgrounds that potentially played a part in their developing sense of cosmopolitanism, eventually leading them to found the musical projects. 50 Ma’s career as a renowned classical cellist has led him to travel to many different places,
encountering many different people and learning from those experiences, inspiring him to found the Silk Road Project. The initial workshop of the Divan was inspired by the many meetings and conversations between Said and Barenboim on their shared passion in music and interest in the Middle East. Subsequently, the the cosmopolitan views of Ma, Barenboim and Said are very 51 much reflected in the ways they imagined music would help in their cosmopolitan projects.
The multicultural and international conditions that influenced the founders are
emphasized in the various documentations of the founders and their projects. In an article written for the Smithsonian Silk Road Folklife Festival in which the Silkroad Ensemble participated, Ma emphasized the various cultural influences as an integral part of the Silkroad:
If you accept that the Silk Road is still present in our world as an inspirational symbol of intercultural meetings, then there are many people alive today whose lives exemplify modern-day Silk Road stories. I am one of them.” In the documentary film of the Silkroad 52 Ensemble, The Music of Strangers, Ma’s cosmopolitan identity is introduced through an old clip in which the famous conductor, Leonard Bernstein, introduces 7-year old Ma as “A Chinese
50 Refer to the introduction.
51 “Interview: Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said Discuss Parallels Between Music and Culture,” NPR, 28
December 2002, https://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/transcripts/2002/dec/021228.simon2.html.
52 Yo-Yo Ma, “A Journey of Discovery,” Smithsonian Folklife Festival, accessed 7 June, 2018.
cellist, playing old French music for his new American compatriots.” The juxtaposition of 53 nationalities mentioned serve to highlight the multinational affiliations that most likely influenced Ma’s cosmopolitan orientation. Like the documentary for the Silkroad, the
“cosmopolitan identities” of Barenboim and Said are highlighted right at the beginning of their joint book dedicated “to the young musicians of the West-Eastern Divan Workshop,” Parallels and Paradoxes: Explorations in Music Society. This is done by foregrounding the multiple affiliations of both Barenboim and Said in the beginning with the question posed by Ara
Guzelimian, the moderator of these talks: “Where are you at home? Or do you ever feel at home? Do you feel yourself in perpetual motion?” Both Said and Barenboim offered similar responses, 54 in which they described the various moves and places that they have experienced, both personal and work related. Barenboim, whose grandparents were Russian-Jewish, was born in Argentina and later moved to Tel Aviv at the age of 10, before moving around Europe to pursue his musical career. Barenboim responds to the question with various answers, in that he feels at home “in 55 the idea of Jerusalem,” or “in the company of a very few close friends” (of which Said is one), and more importantly, that his “feeling of being at home somewhere is really a feeling of transition, as everything is in life… I am happiest when I can be at peace with the idea of
fluidity.” Said was born in Jerusalem to Palestinian parents, but moved to Cairo at a young age, 56 before moving to the United States. Although Said expressed extreme fondness for Cairo, he ended his part with a similar sentiment, “the sense that identity is a set of currents, flowing currents, rather than a fixed place or a stable set of objects. I certainly feel that about myself.” 57 Following this, Barenboim responded to Said:
I’m sure that when you read Goethe, you feel, in a funny way, German, as I do when conducting Beethoven or Bruckner. This was one of the lessons of our workshop in Weimar. Precisely that it’s not only possible to have multiple identities, but also, I would
53The Music of Strangers, 6:10. 54 Barenboim and Said, 3.
55 “Interview: Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said Discuss Parallels Between Music and Culture,” NPR, 28
December 2002, https://www.npr.org/programs/wesat/transcripts/2002/dec/021228.simon2.html and Barenboim and
Said, 3.
56 Barenboim and Said, 4. 57Ibid., 5.
say, something to aspire toward. The sense of belonging to different cultures can only be enriching. 58
Thus in their joint book alone, they have expressed very cosmopolitan notions about the fluidity of identity, the possibility of multiple affiliations, a varied sense of home, and an
openness to the other. These are the cosmopolitan aims to which Barenboim and Said dedicate to the Divan Orchestra. Barenboim and Said cite a multicultural upbringing as integral to their belief in fluidity of identity. This plays an important part in their creation of the ensembles, as the ensembles both demonstrate in various ways that individuals are not to be limited to a mono-cultural identity.
By creating their respective ensembles, Ma, Barenboim and Said are part of those who, according to Hansen,
individuals and communities can respond, in a cosmopolitan-minded spirit, to contemporary pressure on their senses of identity, home, and purpose. It shows how creativity-in-response-to-change materializes in diverse, unscripted forms from which other people, including from very different cultural origins, can learn and benefit. 59 For these ensembles, “contemporary pressure” comes in different forms. In 1998, Yo-Yo Ma 60 founded the Silk Road Project “seeking to understand the fear and insecurity sparked by globalization.” He sought to explore how differences have also “ brought extraordinary 61 possibilities for working together,” and decided to use and explore the Silk Road as such a model. At that point in his acclaimed career as a classical cellist, Ma had participated in many 62 “crossover” projects,” making the Silk Road Project a “logical continuation” of his ventures. In 63 2000, musicians from various traditions and countries gathered at a workshop at Tanglewood, Massachusetts, forming the Silkroad Ensemble. The events of September 11 solidified the belief
58Parallels and Paradoxes, 6.
59 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 5.
60 Yo-Yo Ma is commonly credited as the main founder of the Silk Road Project, but the following source
also credits “a group of scholars and world musicians” in founding the project, “Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble: Music from the Silk Road Project (Digital)”, Boston Symphony Orchestra, accessed 10 June 2018, https://www.bso.org/Merchandise/Detail/44973.
61 “Silkroad Overview,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 10 June 2018,
http://d1ousuiwy40guk.cloudfront.net/attacheds/1658/original/Silkroad_Overview_web.pdf?1507914421.
62 “About Us,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 12 August 2018, https://www.silkroad.org/about-us. 63 Harm Langenkamp, “From Monologue to Dialogue(?): The Poetics and Politics of Inter/Musical
of Ma and others who participated in the beginning Tanglewood workshop that the Silkroad was necessary. Today, the Silkroad Ensemble is a collective of musicians from the Eurasian and American continents that feature both performers and composers that appear “in many
configurations and settings.” Together, they aim to be an ensemble that “engages difference, 64 sparking radical cultural collaboration and passion-driven learning to build a more hopeful world.” 65
For Barenboim and Said, the Arab-Israeli conflict was the catalyst for the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra. The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra was founded only a year after in 1999, when Daniel Barenboim and Edward Said started a workshop for Israeli, Palestinian, and other Arab musicians in in Weimar, Germany (which Yo-Yo Ma also participated in). The 66 67
workshop was intended to traverse the political divide between Israelis and Palestinians and other Arabs by providing them with an alternative meeting space in music. The hope is that the individuals who have always known the other as an enemy could interact with their respective others, with “a hope to replace ignorance with education, knowledge and understanding; to humanize the other; to imagine a better future.” The workshop developed into the West-Eastern 68 Divan Orchestra, named after a set of poems by Goethe. In 2002, they were given funding and 69 residency in Seville by the autonomous regional government of Andalusia, where they
subsequently hold annual summer rehearsals in preparation for upcoming tours.
Since the founding of the Divan, Mariam Said has been active in the Divan since her late husband’s death in 2003. As of 2017, Yo-Yo Ma has stepped down from his role as Artistic 70 Director of the Silkroad, and instead is replaced by Jeffrey Beecher, Nicholas Cords, and Shane
64 “Silkroad Musicians,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 10 June 2018,
http://www.silkroadproject.org/ensemble/artists/haruka-fujii.
65 “Silkroad Overview.”
66 “Equal in Music,” West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, accessed 12 August 2018,
https://www.west-eastern-divan.org/.
67 “Edward Said,” Barenboim-Said Foundation USA, accessed 12 August 2018,
https://www.barenboimsaidusa.org/edward-w-said.html
68 “Equal in Music,” West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, accessed 12 August 2018,
https://www.west-eastern-divan.org/.
69 “The Foundation,” Barenboim-Said Foundation USA, accessed 12 August 2018,
https://www.barenboimsaidusa.org/who-we-are.html#about_foundation.
70 Specifically as the Vice President of the Barenboim-Said Foundation USA. “A Founding Vision,”
Shanahan as Co-Artistic Directors. Despite these changes, both ensembles have had 71 award-winning documentaries made about them, and their respective founders also have garnered several awards for their work on the projects. The ensembles’ longevity and sustained success is evidence of the existence of continuous support, both financial and otherwise. But perhaps it is also proof of the constant relevance of the cosmopolitan visions put forth by both ensembles?
The cosmopolitan aspirations of the musical ensembles are reflected in part in the imaginary set up by the set of imagery and ideals associated with their respective namesakes, creating a Silk Road imaginary as well as a West-Eastern Divan imaginary. The Silk Road was an “idealist model for the post-cold war era,” or a “metaphor of cultural rapprochement and mutual exchange, a symbolic alternative to inequitable modes of exchange associated with colonialism and imperialism.” In the face of globalization anxieties, difference can be 72 increasingly perceived as threatening, and cultural traditions are perceived to be in danger of disappearing. The Silk Road emerged as an enticing symbolic representation of intercultural exchange. Thus, research on the Silk Road proliferated throughout the post-cold war period, which included an UNESCO project in 1988 that was “Underwritten by the belief that study, preservation, and revitalization will make cultural traditions in isolation more resilient in the face of segregating forces…” As evidenced from the description above, the notion of the Silk Road 73 provided an ideal model of cultural diplomacy. Implied in this model is a mode of a less
hegemonic engagement with different cultural others seeking to preserve their respective traditions. In this light of cultural preservation, the Silk Road imaginary can be seen as a model of multiculturalism. Sarah Silverman notes, “nostalgia for the pre-modern authentic is not only a strategy of marketing but also a strategy of representing identity.” According to Harm 74
71 “Yo-Yo Ma steps down from Silkroad Ensemble,” The Strad, 25 October 2017,
https://www.thestrad.com/news/yo-yo-ma-steps-down-from-silkroad-ensemble/7230.article.
72 Harm Langenkamp, “Contested Imaginaries of Collective Harmony: The Poetics and Politics of “Silk
Road” Nostalgia in China and the West,” in China and the West: Music, Representation, and Reception (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2017), 243-264, 253.
73 Langenkamp, “Contested Imaginaries,” 253.
74 Carol Silverman, ‘Trafficking in the Exotic with “Gypsy Music,” in Balkan Popular Culture and the Ottoman Ecumene: Music, Image, and Regional Political Discourse (Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2007), 335–61, 343.
Langenkamp, the Silk Road acts as such by representing “a past seemingly defined by cross-cultural exchange, a golden age of perceived universalism to which we (it is implied) should aspire to return.” These two quotes point to how the Silk Road imagery, romantically 75 conceived as a “pre-modern” mixing of “authentic” cultures, can be used to set up an imaginary site of cultural exchange in the Silkroad Ensemble. As such, it can also set up a cosmopolitan imaginary through the openness towards the other implied through cultural exchange.
It is through the aspect of the Silk Road imaginary as a site of romanticized intercultural exchange that Ma wishes to use to challenge normative conceptions of culture and difference. He does so by identifying the existence of many so-called “cosmopolitan identities,” defined by Gillian Brock as “one who is marked or influenced by various cultures,” or more importantly, 76 an identity that is not defined solely by a uni-national affiliation. This is reflected in Ma’s connection of the Silk Road to present day individuals, challenging both the pre-modern “traditional” cultures trope of the Silk Road imaginary, as well as the notion of culture as “authentic.” With the premise that all traditions are mixed (“But what are ‘authentic’ traditions? Look deeply enough into any one, and you’ll find elements of others” ), Ma brings the silkroad 77 project more towards cosmopolitanism. Cosmopolitanism is also articulated through Ma’s goal to find the common aspects between cultures/through difference that can bind, and the different ones that can be learned from: “Discovering what's shared, and what can be appropriated, refined, and restyled, is the essential work of cultural exchange and innovation.” In other 78 words, this is Ma’s version of loyalty to the known and openness to the new, and his way of attempting to unify while preserving diversity.
The cosmopolitan goals of the Silkroad Ensemble is especially apparent in the documentary film, The Music of Strangers. With no single omniscient narrator, the film 79 consists of clips of the voices of those who participated in the ensemble, forming a
75 Harm Langenkamp, “Conflicting Dreams of Global Harmony in US-PRC Silk Road Diplomacy,” in Music and Diplomacy from the Early Modern Era to the Present (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 83-100, 84.
76 Brock, 2. 77 Ibid. 78 Ibid.
collective—yet fragmented—narration. The beginning of the film demonstrates Ma’s comments quoted above, namely the “many people alive today whose lives exemplify modern-day Silk Road stories,” Members of the group are introduced by name and then country, and their 80 backstories all seem to indicate multiple attachments to different places. 81
The cosmopolitan ethical stance of the Silkroad members (at least some of them) are expressed through the tropes of tradition and innovation. In general, they invoke a belief that innovation is a transformative process achieved through encountering and engaging difference, 82 and that such a process is necessary to keep a culture and tradition alive. The recurring trope of 83 mediating between tradition and innovation, between what’s shared and what’s different, is reflective of the interests of the Silkroad members in maintaining the cosmopolitan tension between the old and new, and innovation implies a creation of new forms and transformations. Indeed, there seems to always be care in expressing the “reflectiveness” in mediation, a quality identified by Delanty and Hansen as crucial to cosmopolitanism. But the most resounding
expression of a devotion to a critical cosmopolitan transformation can be found the ending of the film, where Ma quotes T. S. Eliot: “We shall never cease from exploration. And the end of all of our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time.” This 84 quote seems to emphasize the journey of self-transformation, as gaining a new perspective through learning more about others in the world.
The inspiration for the title of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra came from the
collection of poems from Goethe of the same name. According to Said, Goethe was inspired to
80 Ma, “A Journey of Discovery.”
81 Kinan Azmeh, a clarinetist who grew up in Damascus, reflects on the Syrian revolution. 8:46 Kayhan
Kalhor, a kamancheh player from Iran, recounts having to flee the country due to the revolution, and traveling on foot through countries like Romania, Yugoslavia, and Italy, 24:12; Wu Man, a pipa player from China, tells of the transformative concert given by Isaac Stern in China after the Cultural Revolution in China, Music of Strangers, 16:17.
82 Azmeh: “Definitely America is very different. But I’m more interested in actually appreciating the
differences. What you have that I don’t have. Not that I want to take it away from you, no, but that I want to learn from you, no?” 39:41; Cristina Pato: “When you learn something from another culture, you will grow more if you bring it back to your own culture,” Music of Strangers, 1:30:03.
83 Ma: “There is no tradition that exists today that is not the result of a really successful invention. But
unless a tradition keeps evolving, it naturally becomes smaller and smaller,” Music of Strangers, 55:05.
explore Islam and Persian poetry after being given a page of the Koran from a German soldier fighting in Spain. Goethe represented an example of engaging with the “other” through art: 85
The interesting thing about Goethe—and also about our experience in Weimar—was that art, for Goethe especially, was all about a voyage to the “other,” and not concentrating on oneself, which is very much a minority view today. There is more of a concentration today on the affirmation of identity, on the need for roots, on the values of one’s culture and one’s sense of belonging. It’s become quite rare to project one’s self outward, to have a broader perspective. 86
In this quote, Said’s emphasis on the “outward projection of self” is a cosmopolitan openness to differences, in which expanding perspectives and learning from the other offers a refreshing alternative to what he perceives as a divisive “affirmation” of belonging. Goethe, who wrote the Divan after encountering the “other” of Persian culture, can also be understood to represent both a reflective, critical and productive engagement with the other.
Similar to Hansen’s view, Barenboim and Said’s goal to inspire cosmopolitanism is not intended as a solution to the conflict:
The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra is, of course, unable to bring about peace. What it can do, however, is to create the conditions for understanding. It can awaken the curiosity, and then perhaps the courage, for each to listen to the narrative of the other, and at the very least to accept its legitimacy. 87
In this sense, the primary aim is to create the opportunity in which the different sides of the Arab-Israeli conflict can listen to the other’s narrative in the first place. After all, according to Delanty, “Recognition of the perspective of the other is the key to cosmopolitanism and it makes little sense speaking of cosmopolitanism if this is absent.” Not only are Barenboim and 88 Said then hoping that one would listen to the other’s narrative, but that there would be an ongoing dialogue, as dialogue between the two was what inspired this project.
Our project may not change the world, but it is a step forward. Edward Said and myself see our project as an ongoing dialogue, where the universal, metaphysical language of
85 Barenboim and Said, 7. 86Ibid.,, 11.
87 “The Power of Music: Europe’s commitment in the Middle East and in the world,” Daniel Barenboim,
speech given in 29 January 2007,
https://danielbarenboim.com/the-power-of-music-europes-commitment-in-the-middle-east-and-in-the-world/.
music links with the continuous dialogue that we have with young people, and that young people have with each other. 89
Through continuing the dialogue then can cosmopolitanism arise, as dialogue can potentially lead to transformation and openness to others.
By founding the musical ensembles as a response to the “contemporary pressures” on issues of identity and culture, Ma, Barenboim and Said were acting with the creative agency that is considered by Delanty and Hansen as characteristic of cosmopolitanism. Their respective ensembles, created in part through different imaginaries of cosmopolitan openness to the other, are founded as a space where a dialogic negotiation of difference can occur through the
encounter with the other through music. The Silkroad and the Divan can be understood to comprise a part of cosmopolitan creativity as described by Hansen:
In a cosmopolitan light, creativity is what people bring into being that is constituted by aesthetic, moral, political, and social meaning, however microscopic the scale may be. Put another way, in generating relations with self, other, and world, people bring into being new beings: namely, themselves, again however modest the transformations in personhood may be in each particular moment. 90
The capacity for transformation arise from the dialogic interaction between the ensemble
members, as they work together to create music, thus forming new relationships with each other and as a collective ensemble. Thus, as Delanty specifies, “The cosmopolitan imagination from the perspective of a critical social theory of modernity tries to capture the transformative
moment, interactive relations between societies and modernities, the developmental and dialogic aspect.” In the next chapter, we will explore how cosmopolitanism is further imagined and 91 performed specifically in the context of a musical ensemble.
89 “Vision,” Barenboim-Said Foundation USA, accessed 13 August 2018,
https://www.barenboimsaidusa.org/what-we-do.html#our-vision.
90 Hansen, “Cosmopolitanism as Cultural Creativity,” 7. 91 Delanty, “Cosmopolitan Imagination,” 227.
Chapter 2: Performing Cosmopolitanism
Beckles Willson identifies the Divan as “a highly politicized, semi-public platform on which identities (Spaniards, Arabs and Jews) interact.” As such, she examines the ensemble as a type of museum made up of “curated subjects, bodies,” forming a “colonial display of
non-European ethnicities and identities.” From this point of view, we can identify both the 92 Divan and the Silkroad as ensembles with carefully chosen aspects to achieve specific aims. For both of these projects, a narrative of collaboration is crucial to the cosmopolitan imaginary, particularly a display of collaboration where difference is not a divisive factor. The irony of cosmopolitan projects is that in order to perceive cultural collaboration, there needs to be a perceptible difference between the collaborators.
Craig Jeffrey and Colin McFarlane notes that cosmopolitanism, as a strategic resource, can be performed as “set of imaginaries and practices.” In this chapter, I will look at how the 93 Silkroad and Divan can be understood as a set of imaginaries and practices. In the previous chapter, I explored the imaginary of the Silk Road and Goethe’s Divan as setting up the cosmopolitan imaginary for the respective ensembles. Here, I will continue to see how the cosmopolitan imaginary operates specifically in the musical ensemble. As ensembles with cosmopolitan aims, I argue that cosmopolitanism imaginary in the Silkroad and the Divan is performed through the representations of difference and unity. Difference is imagined at the level of the ensemble memberships—as a set of “curated subjects and bodies.” Unity is perceived through the collaborative aspects of the ensemble as a whole and the performances of specific repertoires. I then examine how cosmopolitanism can be practiced in musical ensembles in general, and how it can be understood to be present in musical ensembles. By examining these aspects in the Silkroad and the Divan, I hope to further understand how these different aspects can present different methods of performing cosmopolitanism, and how they might contribute to a performance of different cosmopolitan narratives.
92 Rachel Beckles Willson, “The Parallax Worlds of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra,” Journal of the Royal Musical Association 134, no. 2 (2009): 322.
Imagining Difference
How is difference “imagined” within the Silkroad and the Divan? How is the self and the other constructed? As per the Silkroad imaginary, the Silkroad Ensemble can be seen as a “curated” collection of Silk Road bodies from the Silk Road countries (such as China,
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, and Mongolia) alongside those from North American 94 countries such as the USA and Canada. On the official website, the musicians are all identified by their national affiliations next to their names, as well as the instruments they play (or their role, i.e. performer, composer, storyteller, or visual artist, etc.). The act of identifying the 95 musicians by their nationality and their instrument both shows the diversity of the ensemble and renders the musicians as representative of their respective countries. But such a generalization acts as a first impression, as a further click on the names of the musicians on the website will reveal more nuanced biographies that go beyond national identity. 96
Aside from the national labels, the current Silkroad website avoids many essentialisms in the biographies of the musicians. The biographies of the musicians do not always tie the person to the instrument(s) that they play, which in turn could become a default cultural representation. The shakuhachi and the kamancheh are listed without specific affiliations to a culture or place in the biographies of Kojiro Umezaki and Kayhan Kalhor respectively. The instruments are offered a non-restrictive ambiguity by not being labeled as culturally traditional instruments, even though they might not be considered as “commonplace” as “Western” instruments that might be considered as needing no descriptors, like a violin or piano. This can be understood as a way to avoid the generalization and reductiveness that can lead to practices of exoticism, where non-western elements are often seen as foreign and exotic elements subsumed into a Western framework. This desire to avoid exoticism is reflected in the biography of Wu Man, a pipa player from China. She is described as “an ambassador of Chinese music,” and the concluding sentence
94 Langenkamp, “From Monologue to Dialogue,”, f140. It is ironic in terms of the name that the country
that is represented most in the Silkroad Ensemble is the United States. But this makes much more sense given the founding history, the headquarters and economic ties of the Ensemble and of Yo-Yo Ma.
95 “Ensemble,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 10 June 2018, https://www.silkroad.org/ensemble 96 And whether is identity is one that transcends the national, or perhaps complicates it, depends on the
to her biography on the website is that “the best measure of her achievement is that her
instrument, which dates back 2000 years, is no longer an exotic curiosity.” This sentence points 97 to how exoticism can depend on the perception of strangeness and unfamiliarity. Wu Man’s efforts in championing the pipa rendered it as no longer exotic nor privy to exoticism. It also implies that participating in ensembles like the Silkroad can help “de-exoticize” certain cultures and instruments through exposure. The fact that cultural emphasis varies between biographies and that the cultural ties of the instruments are not always made explicit shows demonstrates an amount of flexibility in representation. This demonstrates an avoidance of exoticism and
suggests a dedication to the diverse levels of relevance of cultural traditions to the ensemble musicians, giving the participating members agency in their own representation.
Another factor in how difference is to be imagined in the Silkroad lie in the wording (or lack of) on their official website: “Silkroad creates music that engages difference, sparking radical cultural collaboration and passion-driven learning to build a more hopeful world.” 98 Notable in this descriptor is the absence of terms such as “cultural difference” and the prefixes of “cross-” and “inter-” for cultural, words that were more prevalent in Ma’s early promotion of the Silk Road project. Instead of highlighting a difference across culture, the use of the more
generalized terms of “difference” and “radical cultural collaboration” suggests that the view of “difference” is not subjected to one of culture, but can be more encompassing. It can be argued that the ambiguity of how the “difference” may be constructed is a positive reflection on the awareness of the contingent nature of difference construction, and a refusal to dictate the lines along which difference is drawn. Such ambiguity can be viewed more productively as flexibility on the part of the Silk Road project to challenge all individuals and groups to engage with the varying notions of difference. This is relevant in that the philosophy of engaging with the other is not limited to a cultural other, but can also be the individual other, showing devotion to
pluralism. But the inclusion of “cultural collaboration” can also imply a dedication to
multiculturalism, but with an emphasis on the collaborative potential of different cultures rather than divisiveness. This may also be why difference is not identified as “cultural difference,” as it would imply that cultural differences as the main divisive factor, and play into cultural
97 “Artists,” Silkroad Ensemble, accessed 10 June 2018, https://www.silkroad.org/ensemble/artists/wu-man 98 “Silkroad Overview”
essentialism. Thus, this vague and varied representation is one of the ways that the Silkroad positions itself as a cosmopolitan ensemble rather than just a multicultural one. The fact that “cultural” is linked to “collaboration” rather than difference seems to be a strategy to show the cosmopolitan paradox of dedication to pluralism and multiculturalism, and an adherence to the concept of the ever-fluid and changing individual and cultural identities.
Despite attempts to construct difference in what seems to be an attempt to avoid
eurocentrism, the ensemble still seems to be West-dominated. There is a disproportionate amount of musicians from the USA compared to all the other countries. While this is very likely due to the fact that the Silkroad Ensemble was founded by Ma, and American citizen, and has ties with several American institutions, this representation in national numbers can be read as another East-West dichotomy, with the USA as the main representation of the West, and many of the other countries as the East. But it nevertheless creates a stronger case for a “West and the rest” 99 construction of the self and other, counterproductive to the imagining of difference mentioned previously.
Goethe’s Divan imaginary sets up a context between an interaction of Europe and the Middle East for the Divan orchestra. However, it can be argued that the Divan members were curated more along the lines of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Despite that, national identities of its members go beyond the binary divide. This is in part due to the broad criteria for membership: 100 “Applicants should have a national background of any country from the Middle East,
North-Africa or Spain.” The realities of the Divan members are much like that of the founders: 101 hyphenated, and more “cosmopolitan,” such as an Albanian Israeli citizen and a Kurdish
musician from Syria. According to Beckles Willson, the makeup of the Divan also depends 102 largely on the “curators,” which include not only Daniel Barenboim and Mariam Said, but an array of other organizations and agencies who fund and invest in the orchestra. The Divan is
99 “Indeed, the problematic ways in which the West serves as such a reference point may be one hallmark of
modernity,” Silverman, 359.
100 Beckles Willson expressed concern over the “breadth of membership” of the Divan because it could
mean that many of the Divan participants might be far-removed from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which runs the risk of the Divan becoming a “detached European-American model of a ‘better’ Middle East” in “Parallax,” 332.
101 “Join the Divan,” West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, accessed 13 August 2018,
https://www.west-eastern-divan.org/audition/.
financed by the Andalusian government, which explains why “of Spanish background” is also a criteria for eligibility in the orchestra. In 2006, a Turkish musician also participated in the
orchestra due to a sponsored concert performance in Istanbul. The presence of the Spanish and 103 the Turkish musicians served as a sort of “neutral space in which the Arab and Israeli groups might interact productively.” In 2006, Beckles Willson observed that the Spanish players in 104 the orchestra did not choose sides and avoided the political conflict. When asked, Mariam likened the Spanish players to Europe in their role as the “glue.” But the Spanish participation 105 in the orchestra is not widely advertised (aside from its part in the audition criteria). In much of media, the Divan is often said to be made up of “Israeli, Palestinian and other Arab musicians,” description that was used for the initial Weimar workshop in 1999. Furthermore, the names and nationalities of the orchestral members are not listed on the webpage aside from a few profiled musicians. This is due to security concerns, as many of the musicians risk ostracization or worse from their government, family, friends and peers by participating in the Divan. That is also why in the observations of Beckles Willson, Beecher and Riiser almost none of the orchestral 106 107 members are mentioned by name. Because of the this and the rare mentions of the Spanish participations, the Arab-Israeli conflict is very much foregrounded in the Divan, giving the impression that this duality is reflective of the identities of the Divan musicians.
What sort of “divide” are the ensembles overcoming by the nature of collaboration? Both ensembles are arguably about encountering the “other” in all senses, but it seems as if the
Silkroad is primarily more about the cultural other, while the Divan is about encountering a political-cultural other. The main difference between the Silkroad and the Divan is that the latter has as its starting point a deep-rooted bas and prejudice against the other, viewing the “other” as the enemy,. And this image of the “other” as enemy is a violent one, and has been cultivated for a long time. Whereas the Silkroad does not start with such a strong aversion to the “other,” which can make openness to difference as also openness to newness. Newness in terms of the
103 Beckles Willson, “Parallax,” 331. 104Ibid.
105Ibid.
106 Devin G. Beecher, “Part Two: Perspectives on knowledge, from the Divan Orchestra and Providence
Community MusicWorks,” New Directions for Youth Development 125 (2010): 127-40.
107 Solveig Riiser, “National Identity and the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra,” Music & Arts in Action 2, no.
