Members of the 2017 GRAMMY® Award-winning Silk Road Ensemble performed with forty local students from the Silk Road Connect of JHS 185 Edward Bleeker to celebrate the role music plays in learning and advancing global understanding as part of The Music of Strangers Interactive Experience at the Vanderbilt Hall of Grand Central Terminal.

Inspired by the upcoming HBO documentary The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma & the Silk Road Ensemble, premiering March 6 on HBO, the exhibition was a two-day installation featuring an interactive LED stage that creates a virtual symphony allowing straphangers to ‘perform’ compositions with interactive displays. The Silk Road Ensemble performed yesterday to kick-off the exhibition, and the students of Silk Road Connect performed today as the finale of the Vanderbilt Hall exhibition.

The Silk Road Connect is a non-profit program created as an education initiative in collaboration with the Silk Road Ensemble members to engage local communities and schools through music and the arts. The students of the Silk Road Connect reflect the Silk Road Ensemble in both the universal representation—Syria, Israel, Spain, China, Japan, Korea and Russia—and the purpose to exemplify music’s ability to blend disparate cultures and inspire hope.