شهر سکوت!

قطعه ی موسیقی و اجرایی زیبا به یادبود حلبچه کردستان؛ کاری از کارگروه «راه ابریشم»، برپایه ی سناریوی آهنگساز و کمانچه نواز ایرانی: کیهان کلهر.

For "Silent City," the kamancheh (Persian spike fiddle), Western strings and percussion join in a meditation that is recreated with each performance. Composer and kamancheh player Kayhan Kalhor wrote the piece to commemorate the Kurdish village of Halabjah in Iraqi Kurdistan. "I chose to base the piece on an altered A-minor scale using Kurdish themes to remember the Kurdish people."

The performers develop the piece by improvisation until the last section, which follows conventional composition and notation. Each performance of "Silent City" is different, as are the performers who play it. This excerpt was filmed during a concert by the Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo Ma in Harvard University's Sanders Theatre in March 2011.

Kayhan Kalhor speaks about this piece in a video interview: http://youtu.be/OWX3VLnoH_s

"Silent City" was made possible by a grant from the Fromm Music Foundation and was first performed in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on December 20, 2005, by the Silk Road Ensemble, artists in residence at Harvard University.

For more on the Silk Road Ensemble and the Silk Road Project, visit  http://silkroadproject.org