THE MUSIC OF STRANGERS: YO-YO MA & THE SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE

Master cellist Ma conceived the Silk Road Ensemble in 2000 as an international collective of musicians from different Eurasian cultures that would explore the power of music to transcend boundaries — as Ma puts it, “Musicians coming together to see what happens when strangers meet.” The group of fifty or so artists has since produced seven acclaimed albums and performed before over two million people in 33 countries. Oscar-winning filmmaker Neville (TWENTY FEET FROM STARDOM) is especially adept at presenting both the music and the stories behind the music, and this enchanting documentary is no exception. It begins with a rousing open-air concert in a public square in Istanbul, then sketches in the biography of Ma (including a wonderful clip of the seven-year-old prodigy performing at the Kennedy White House) and the evolution of the Ensemble. It proceeds to interweave the back stories of selected Ensemble members (often survivors of political oppression), including Iranian exile Kayhan Kalhor, master of the kamancheh, or Persian spiked fiddle, and Cristina Pato, a green-haired. rock-starlike bagpiper known as “the Jimi Hendrix of Galicia.” DCP digital.