Left to Right: Pura Fé, photo by Lap Steel Stormphoto; Haruka Fujii, photo courtesy of the artist; Maeve Gilchrist, photo courtesy of the artist; Mazz Swift, photo by Erika Kapin.
Pura Fé, Haruka Fujii, Maeve Gilchrist, and Mazz Swift are each acclaimed artists with significant international performance careers. Additionally, each are members of Silkroad Ensemble, a GRAMMY Award-winning collective of musicians founded by cellist Yo-Yo Ma in 2000 and now under the artistic direction of Rhiannon Giddens. These artists represent dozens of nationalities and artistic traditions, from Spain and Japan to Syria and the United States, and draw on a rich tapestry of traditions from around the world to create a new musical language that weaves together the foreign and the familiar. The Ensemble appears in many configurations and settings, from intimate groups of two and three in museum galleries to rousing complements of eighteen in concert halls, public squares, and amphitheaters.
In this special performance, Silkroad Ensemble members Pura Fé, Haruka Fujii, Maeve Gilchrist, and Mazz Swift combine Japanese percussion, Celtic Harp, classical violin, electronica, and Indigenous and African traditions into a concert that evokes the essence of Banff Centre and in particular, the intercultural Soundweavings music program, of which these artists join us as faculty.
About the Performers
Haruka Fujii
Multi-percussionist Haruka Fujii has become one of the most prominent solo percussionists and marimbists of her generation. She has won international acclaim for her interpretations of contemporary music, having performed numerous premieres of works from luminary composers. Since 2010 Ms. Fujii has performed as an artist of the Grammy Award winning Silkroad Ensemble, joining a group of international musicians founded by Yo-Yo Ma and serves as the Associate Artistic Director alongside with the new artistic director Rhiannon Giddens.
Ms. Fujii’s passion for introducing audiences to new percussion music has put her on stage with diverse orchestras and ensembles. She has appeared as a soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, Munich Philharmonic, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Nationale de Lyon, and the NHK Symphony Orchestra. She is a member of San Francisco Contemporary Music Players and Line C3 Percussion Group, also Utari Percussion Duo, a duet project with her sister Rika which actively commissions new compositions from young composers. In addition to her career as a performing artist, Ms. Fujii is a faculty member of San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and has been a frequent guest instructor at Juilliard Summer Percussion Seminar and several international percussion festivals. She is also a founder and creative director of a nonprofit organization Nippon Kobo, a new cultural event series introducing Music+Culture from contemporary Japan.
Mazz Swift
Mazz Swift is a composer, conductor, singer, bandleader, educator, and Juilliard-trained violinist. Improvisation is a throughline in their practice across genres and instrumental configurations, and can be found in most of their works. As violinist and singer, Mx. Swift is no stranger to most of the world’s greatest stages including Royal Albert Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Carnegie Hall, Müpa Budapest, and David Geffen Hall, Alice Tully Hall and Damrosch Park at Lincoln Center in New York City.
As a composer, Swift’s works include commissions by The Los Angeles Philharmonic, American Composers Orchestra, The Kronos Quartet and the International Contemporary Ensemble. As an educator, Swift has taught workshops in free improvisation and “conduction” (conducted improvisation) on six continents and is a performing member and teaching artist with the GRAMMY-award winning Silkroad Ensemble.
Mazz is a 2021 United States Artist, and 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow, continually creating orchestral compositions that involve Conduction, small ensemble works that include improvisation, and solo works that are centered around protest and freedom songs, spirituals, and the Ghanaian concept of ‘Sankofa’: looking back to learn how to move forward.
Phot by Erika Kapin
Maeve Gilchrist
Described by one critic as “a phenomenal harp player who can make her instrument ring with unparalleled purity”, Maeve Gilchrist has taken the Celtic (lever) harp to new levels of performance and visibility.
Born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, and currently based in New York, Maeve‘s innovative approach to her instrument stretches its harmonic limits and improvisational possibilities. She is as at home as a soloist with an internationally renowned orchestra as she is playing with a traditional Irish folk group or
using electronic augmentation in a more contemporary, improvisatory setting.
She tours internationally as a band leader, soloist and composer as well as belonging to a number of innovative collaborations including the prestigious Grammy award-winning Silkroad Ensemble (as a performer/composer and Arooj Aftab’s Vulture Prince and Night Rein Ensemble (as a performer/arranger). She has appeared at such major music events as Newport Folk Festival, Tanglewood Jazz Festival, Big Ears Festival, the World Harp Congress in Amsterdam and the historic opening of the Scottish Parliament. She has played with such luminaries as Yo-Yo Ma, Esperanza Spalding, Frankie Gavin, Ambrose Akinmusire, Darol Anger, The Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Paul Simon.
Maeve has released five albums to date, including her most recent recording, The Harpweaver which was hailed by the Irish times in its five-star review as “Buoyant, sprightly and utterly beguiling….a snapshot of a musician at the top of her game.” Other albums include three recordings for the Adventure Music label including her 2017 release with bassist Viktor Krauss, Vignette and a self-released solo album, the Ostinato Project is a beguiling exploration of the possibilities of her instrument. In 2018 Maeve was a featured soloist on the Dreamworks blockbuster movie soundtrack, How to tame your dragon: The hidden world. Maeve was the first lever harpist to be employed as an instructor by her alma mater, Berklee College of Music in Boston, where she taught for five years before switching to being a visiting artist in 2018. She has written several instructional books published by Hal Leonard Music and 80 Days Publishing. She is also an in-demand composer and arranger, with past commissions including two ground-breaking concertos for Lever harp and Symphony Orchestra and several works for harp and string quartet including her three-movement piece Pastures Red premiered at the Edinburgh International Harp festival in 2018.
Maeve is the Artistic Director of the Rockport Celtic Festival and the Founder of the Hudson Valley Creative Harping Retreat. She resides in Kingston NY with her husband, Logan and one year-old daughter, Ishka.
(Maeve Gilchrist and Aizuri Quartet) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2koKs3qIqA&t=5
Pura Fé
Pura Fé (Tuscarora/Taino/Black/Scottish) is an Indigenous activist, singer-songwriter, and storyteller known for her distinct, soulful vocals and founding the world-renowned Native women’s a Capella singing group Ulali
Pura Fé has been a part of the Silk Road Ensemble under the direction of Rhiannon Giddens, started by Yo Yo Ma and recently touring with the performances American Railroad and Uplifted Voices.
Pura Fé was recently honoured with the Dora Mayor Moore Award for Outstanding Music Composition and Sound Design for Miigus: Underwater Panther. While touring Europe with Music Maker Blues Review under Dixie Frog and Nueva Onda French labels, she won Grand Prix du Disque from L'Académie Charls Cros (French Grammy) for Best World Album in 2006 for Tuscarora Nation Blues, and a Native American Music Award (NAMMY) for Best Female Artist for Follow Your Heart’s Desire in the same year.
Today, Pura Fé lives in Canada and is working on the film Reclaim My Skin with Screen Sirens Film Productions and Rezolution Pictures. Her latest album Ancestral Waterways will be released in 2025.
Photo by Gwendolen Cates