BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Silkroad will take to the IU Auditorium stage to perform its next flagship program, Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual on March 12 at 7:30 p.m. The second major initiative conceived by Artistic Director Rhiannon Giddens—following the success of American Railroad which toured from 2023-2025—Sanctuary represents a new direction for Silkroad, one focused more than ever before on community, collaboration, and healing.

 

“A performance that embraces and strengthens cultural music diversity is coming our way as The Silkroad Ensemble takes our stage under the direction of two-time Grammy Award and Pulitzer Prize-winning singer and multi-instrumentalist, Rhiannon Giddens,” said IU Auditorium Executive Director, Maria Talbert. “This Grammy Award-winning musical ensemble’s latest flagship program, Sanctuary: The Power of Resonance and Ritual, enables audiences to find comfort in our ever-changing environments and rebuild community based on our own humanity. You won’t want to miss this performance.”

 

Throughout history, people have turned to music for soothing and solace in times of conflict, uncertainty, and change. Across cultures—from Morocco to India to Ireland—the communal act of music-making has often been linked to trance, release, and connection. In Sanctuary, Rhiannon Giddens and the Silkroad Ensemble explore how these traditions help us make sense of our world, process loss, navigate environmental and social changes, and rebuild community through shared musical experience. At its core, the program seeks to uplift—offering joy, hope, and a renewed sense of belonging through collective listening and presence.

 

“I’ve been thinking a lot about what music is for. Music has always had a function in human society. Entertainment was always a very small piece of that, and the rest of it—especially for folks who are not of the elite—was part of the everyday fabric of human life,” said Giddens.

 

To create the program, Silkroad artists are engaging deeply with one another’s musical languages. Each artist brings a piece of their musical lineage, reflecting on how music serves as sanctuary. Taught and learned aurally with semi-improvisatory arrangements, each performance of the program reflects an authentic musical response from the ensemble in real time.

 

The forms of music featured on Sanctuary are not presented as passive entertainment, but as practices rooted in ritual, healing, and spirituality. The program draws on Southern Italian tarantellas, historically performed as music-and-dance rituals believed to cure the effects of a tarantula’s bite. Led by guest artist Mauro Durante alongside Silkroad artist Francesco Turrisi, its driving rhythms and energy offer a powerful expression of communal release and renewal.

 

Moroccan Gnawa music, represented by guest artist Mehdi Nassouli, invokes ancestors and saints through all-night trance ceremonies that blend West African traditions with Arab-Muslim and Indigenous Berber influences. Long associated with healing and spiritual liberation, Gnawa demonstrates how repetition and rhythm can open space for collective transcendence. 

 

In Hindu tradition, music is inseparable from spiritual devotion. Played here by Silkroad artist Sandeep Das, the tabla’s paired drums embody balance—between masculine and feminine energies, structure, and improvisation—reflecting a philosophy in which deep listening and equilibrium are essential to both inner and outer life.

 

Sanctuary also incorporates the Congolese fingerstyle guitar with Silkroad artist Niwel Tsumbu, a tradition shaped by migration, colonial history, and global exchange. Its interlocking lines transform struggle into motion and beauty, offering both solace and social commentary through rhythm and groove. American old-time music led by Rhiannon Giddens further grounds the program, recalling songs passed down through generations as companions through hardship.

 

Together, these traditions—and many others being shared by the Silkroad artists in this program—reveal music not simply as performance, but as a communal practice that helps people to find sanctuary through shared sound and ritual.

 

“I want the audience to feel that we are safe, the musicians on stage, and that we are having a transcendent evening,” said Giddens. “I don't need them to not see the insides. I want the audience to see us reveling in the music, and laughing with each other, or being intense with each other, in a way that I always love to see more of myself, because it makes me feel human, to see musicians being human, and to see communication going on.”

 

Sanctuary honors music’s long tradition as a communal and functional art form, and thus invites audiences to participate fully, joining in a shared evening of music-making that transforms spectatorship into community and listening into collective experience.

 

Giddens concludes, “Through this program, we as musicians are healing ourselves even as we’re hopefully providing some healing and respite for the audience, who have themselves become part of our community for the evening.”

 

2026 SANCTUARY: THE POWER OF RESONANCE AND RITUAL TOUR –

ROSTER:

 

Rhiannon Giddens, banjo, vocals

Shawn Conley, bass

Sandeep Das, tabla

Haruka Fujii, marimba, percussion

Karen Ouzounian, cello

Mazz Swift, violin, vocals

Niwel Tsumbu, guitar, vocals

Francesco Turrisi, frame drums, accordion

Kaoru Watanabe, Japanese flutes and percussion

Mauro Durante*, tamburello, violin, vocals

Mehdi Nassouli*, guembri, vocals

*Guest artist

 

Silkroad with Rhiannon Giddens at IU Auditorium is presented in partnership with the Jacobs School of Music and WFIU. IU Auditorium’s 2025–2026 season is presented by Curry Auto Center, Cook, The Herald Times, Upland Brewing Company, World Arts Inc., Boston Scientific, and B97.