American Railroad

For fans fortunate enough to get on board this project during its tour of the US from 2023 to 2024, the delighted feedback we share with everyone else about this recording of Silkroad’s American Railroad project is on how uniquely and solidly it sounds like a sort of world music oratorio. Four years into her artistic directorship of the ensemble founded by Yo-Yo Ma in 1998, Rhiannon Giddens has assembled an international crew of other performers and arrangers to tell the story of the multi-ethnic, multi-national workers who constructed the US’ Transcontinental Railroad in the mid-19th century and of the Indigenous people displaced in the course of this development. The 13 sections of the programme feature 13 performers, including Giddens and Wu Man, on a score of instruments, including strings, percussion and winds, with many members of the ensemble also soloing or harmonising in song. The imaginative and exciting material is partly extant traditional, but most of it is either composed by ensemble members or commissioned for the project.