Eurasia Consort
Around the first millennium AD, the Silk Road trade routes started. The Silk Road connected China and the Far East, the Middle East and Europe. It carried merchandise, the Buddhist faith, and MUSIC!
About
Founded by Tomoko Sugawara and August Denhard in 2013, The Eurasia Consort has given frequent concerts in New York, Seattle and Houston. They have collaborated with leading musicians from East Asia and the Middle East. Past performances are in the Gotham Early Music Midtown Concert series in the Chapel at St. Bartholomew’s Church, the Rubin Museum, Tenri Institute in New York and Trinity Parish Church, the Edmonds Library, the Gig Harbor History Museum in Pacific Northwest in Seattle and Asia Society in Houston.
In May 2019 the two founders received grants from the Dunhuang Foundation to visit Dunhuang (China) and research its cave paintings of ancient musical instruments. Specifically, they were interested in instruments painted during the Tang Dynasty.
The Eurasia Consort received two transformational grants in 2017 for works to be performed in 2018. Chamber Music America awarded the ensemble a Classical Commissioning Grant for a new work by American composer Alice Shields, to be titled The Wind in the Pines.
Also in 2017, Eurasia Consort received a grant from the Cheswatyr Foundation to commission a new composition from Chinese American composer Bun-Ching Lam titled Dancing Along the Silk Road. This work will be dedicated to the memory of Chinese scholar Alan Berkowitz.
