Washburn visits China
Friday, November 4, 2011 – Abigail Washburn and her band the Village will embark on a tour along the Silk Road of Mongolia and Western China, in an effort to build cultural bridges by collaborating with local musicians in a tour starting later this month. She currently is touring the U.S. on the East Coast.
Sponsored by the U.S. State Department with support from the Patagonia Corp., the band will perform at universities, orphanages and community centers, with several hours to work up collaborative music in each city.
"This tour will be the story of the yearning of the human spirit to connect across cultures," said Washburn, a former Chengdu resident who speaks Mandarin. Having toured China 12 times in the past 7 years, Washburn is one of the few artists capable of performing in the region as an independent entity. "Oh yeah. And it's gonna be one hell of a party," she said.
The entire tour will be documented with a film crew, with video journals uploaded throughout the Fall (Youku.com in China and Youtube for the rest of the world).
Washburn's band will include songwriting partner Kai Welch, fiddler Ross Holmes from Mumford & Sons, drummer Jamie Dick and bassist Jared Engel. Washburn released her third album, "City of Refuge," earlier this year.
U.S. dates are:
Nov. 4 - Rockland, ME / The Strand Theatre
Nov. 5 - Woodstock, NY / Bearsville Theater
Nov. 6 - Boston, MA / Paramount Center Black Box
Nov. 7 - Brooklyn, NY / The Bell House
Nov. 8 - Portland, ME / One Longfellow Square
Nov. 9 - Fall River, MA / Narrows Center for the Arts
Abigail Washburn & the Village - The Silk Road Tour Nov. 12 - 14 Hohhot
Nov. 16 - Yinchuan
Nov. 18 & 19 - Xi'an
Nov. 21 - Lanzhou
Nov. 23 - Xining
Nov. 25 - Urumqi
Nov. 27 & 28 - Xinjiang Province
Nov. 30 - Dec 2 - Guangzhou
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