Silk Road Global Musican Workshop Participant Concerts

The Silk Road Global Musician Workshop presents a Performance Festival comprising a faculty performance and three participant performances in a single week of intense work. This year’s workshop had about fifty participants from around the world along with the eight faculty. After going to the showcase concert on Tuesday night, August 18, 2026, I attended two of the three participant concerts on August 20 and 22, 2026. The participant concerts were held at NEC’s Plimpton Shattuck Black Box Theater, 255 St. Botolph Street, Boston, Massachusetts, a jewel of a performance space.

All participants played in each of the participant concerts. Participants were grouped with faculty members who helped the participants prepare a new piece for each performance, with an emphasis on creativity and innovation. A participant was allowed to work a different faculty member for each performance if desired.

The faculty were:

Mike Block, GMW Boston Director, cello
Eddie Barbash, saxophone
Hanneke Cassel, violin
Ara Dinkjian, oud
Jamey Haddad, percussion
Mei Han 韩梅, zheng
Balla Kouyaté, balafon
Veronica Robles, voice

The results were astonishing. Somehow, in the course of only a few hours, the participants, with coaching, put together new musical pieces for each concert, demonstrating great skill and creativity. The two concerts I attended were tremendous fun and were enthusiastically received by the audiences. The participant concerts ended with the participants coached by Balla Koyaté, who really got the dancing going.

For the finale of the three participant concerts, all of the musicians walked onto the stage to join in the final piece. Mike Block, the director of the Silk Road Global Musician Workshop, is standing to the left in a blue shirt while playing his cello.

Grand Finale