ilkroad Ensemble with Rhiannon Giddens: American Railroad

After the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad, a trip from coast to coast that used to take months was shortened to just under a week, allowing for the transport of goods and ideas across the continent in ways that were previously inconceivable. Profit-seeking corporations and the American government financed it, but the people who actually built it and were most affected by it — Indigenous and African Americans, as well as Irish, Chinese, Japanese, and other immigrant laborers whose contributions have been largely erased from history — are the focus of this program of music Silkroad’s American Railroad seeks to right these past wrongs by illuminating the impact of the Transcontinental Railroad and westward expansion on the communities it displaced and those who labored to build it, painting a more accurate picture of the global diasporic origin of the American Empire. The tour program includes new commissions by jazz artist Cécile McLorin Salvant and Silkroad artist and renowned pipa player Wu Man, as well as new arrangements by Rhiannon Giddens and other Silkroad musicians.