You can now watch the Pre-Show Artist Talk on YouTube.

The Aga Khan Music Programme was launched by His Highness the Aga Khan to support talented musicians and music educators working to preserve, transmit and develop their musical heritage in contemporary forms. This lively performance and artistic exchange features some of the Programme's world-class artists, including award-winning pipa player Wu Man; doira player and ambassador of Uzbek culture Abbos Kosimov; saxophonist Basel Rajoub; long-necked lute performer Sirojiddin Juraev; qanun player Feras Charestan; and viola d'amore player Jasser Haj Youssef. These esteemed musicians come together from three corners of the world — California, Switzerland and Tajikistan — to present a concert of stunning musical selections.

About Aga Khan Master Musicians

The Aga Khan Master Musicians create music inspired by their own deep roots in the cultures of the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin, South Asia, Central Asia, and China. Brought together by the Aga Khan Music Programme to explore how musical innovation can contribute to the revitalization of cultural heritage, the Master Musicians are venerated performers and composer-arrangers who appear on the world's most prestigious stages while also serving as preeminent teachers, mentors, and curators. Each of these exceptional artists has achieved mastery within a rigorous musical tradition defined by canonical styles, repertoires, pedagogy, and performance techniques. At the same time, they share a belief that tradition can serve as an invaluable compass for an artistic search into new forms of creativity inspired, but not constrained, by the past. This search has led to a strikingly original body of work composed, arranged, and performed by the Master Musicians, often joined by distinguished guests. Recent concerts have featured Kronos Quartet, Malian ngoni virtuoso Bassekou Kouyaté, and the Lisbon-based Gulbenkian Orchestra.

This event is presented in partnership with the Aga Khan Music Programme, and is part of a joint project in collaboration with the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, which together form the national museum of Asian art at the Smithsonian, and the Aga Khan Museum.

Funded in part by the Roesch Family Fund, the Sidney Stoneman 1933 Fund and the Patricia S. and Robert A. Levinson 1946 Fund.

For assistance accessing the event, please contact the Box Office with the chat window in the lower corner of your browser or by calling 603.646.2422—available on the night of the event.

Photos: courtesy of the artists