Dissociation, Identity, and Integration: The Silk Road Project of the Silk Road Music Organization
Paper Presentation
21 August 2025
16:30 - 17.00 hrs (GMT + 7)
C305
Nanjing University of the Arts

In 1998, Yo-Yo Ma and his friends launched the Silk Road Journey Music Organization Project to illuminate the heritage of the countries along the Silk Road by examining its cultural mosaic, identifying sounds that represent contemporary traditions, and achieving cultural integration. Today, the project continues as an umbrella organization supporting arts, culture, and education programs worldwide. Its members broaden their global perspectives and deepen their understanding of diverse cultures. This article examines the organization's current musical activities and creations to assess their significance for the diverse community. It explores the cultural hybridity, heterogeneity, and diversity resulting from the fusion of foreign cultures with the mainstream American culture, and how these musical practices express cultural complexity within a unique historical context. In doing so, it reveals how the separated group accomplishes its cultural identity and offers new insights into the development of China's “original” music culture, demonstrating how discrete groups fulfill their cultural identities while contributing to intercultural understanding.