Yo Yo Ma & Silk Road Ensemble

It has been nearly a decade since Kayhan Kalhor and Erdal Erzincan recorded The Wind for ECM. During that long interval, the pair have played together so often, they appear to have perfected a musical language that walks not only between various musical traditions but through them simultaneously, coming through the other side with something timeless. Kalhor is an Iranian master of the kamancheh (spike fiddle). He has a relentlessly mercurial musical mind. It's been displayed not only in his work as a solo artist, with the duo Ghazal, and the ensemble Dastan, but also in Yo-Yo Ma's Silk Road Ensemble. Erzincan is regarded as the greatest living practitioner of the Anatolian baglama tradition.

Iranian kamanche virtuoso and innovative composer Kayhan Kalhor is known for his international collaborations with cellist Yo Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble, the Persian-Indian ensemble, and the Brooklyn Rider string quartet . I Will Not Stand Alone, is a spellbinding meditation on one of the most difficult stages in his life. Kalhor was part of the Green Movement civil uprising in Tehran, which was later squashed by the Iranian regime after disputed national elections. This was certainly an intense, emotional period, where darkness and violence seemed to be taking over. Through Kalhor's music and its immediate connection to the people, hope prevails.

During the fall of 2013, they first met at November Music Festival and since then there has been a successful collaboration and a deep friendship between the Iranian kamancheh grand master Kayhan Kalhor and the three Dutch jazz musicians of the Rembrandt Frerichs Trio.

Good things are worth waiting for. Lars Danielsson had recorded just a few tracks for a new Liberetto album in late 2019. So, when a window appeared in September 2020 between the lockdowns across Europe, he seized the opportunity to bring his fellow band-members back to his studio near Gothenburg to finish what they had started.