At age seventeen, composer Kayhan Kalhor left his home in Iran, fled for safety, and walked over two thousand five hundred miles to Italy alone, with just a small backpack and his beloved kamancheh (spiked fiddle). We'll hear music Kalhor wrote for Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble on today’s show.

Episode Playlist

Hour 1

Edgar Meyer, Chris Thile, and Stuart Duncan: Goat Rodeo
Stuart Duncan, fiddle | Chris Thile, mandolin | Yo-Yo Ma, cello | Edgar Meyer, bass
Album: Goat Rodeo
Sony 84118

Antonin Dvorak: String Quartet No. 14 in A-flat major: Movement 1
Apollo Chamber Players
Apollo Chamber Players, Midtown Arts and Theater Center, Houston, TX

Kayhan Kalhor: Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur
Yo-Yo Ma, cello | Silk Road Ensemble
Album: Yo-Yo Ma & The Silk Road Ensemble & Silk Road Journeys

Dmitri Shostakovich: Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102
Denis Kozhukhin, piano | Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra | Donald Runnicles, conductor
Grand Teton Music Festival, Walk Festival Hall, Jackson Hole, WY

Hour 2

Adina Izarra: El Amolador
Asa Karlberg, flute
Album: Welcome to My Musical Room
MMR

Maurice Ravel: Ma mere loye Mother Goose Suite
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra | David Robertson, conductor
St. Louis Symphony Orchestra, Powell Hall, St. Louis, MO

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Four African Dances, Op. 58
Samuel Nebyu, violin | Charles Abramovic, piano
Lucerne Festival, St Luke's Church, Lucerne, Switzerland

Adina Izarra: Arietta for the 150
Yael Weiss, piano
Baruch Performing Arts Center at Baruch College, Klavierhaus, Baruch College, New York, NY