World-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma and his Silk Road Ensemble played to a capacity audience Monday night at the Shanghai Symphony Hall. The show was part of his Silk Road Project, which promotes cultural and artistic studies linked to the Asian trade route of the same name.

The concert opened with the Silk Road Suite, a musical journey that circles the globe. It starts with a melody from Book of Angels by American composer John Zorn. The Silk Road Ensemble's version drew its inspiration from the Middle Eastern flavor of the original melody, combined with the rhythmic traditions of South India and American heavy metal guitar style.

The audience also heard the peaceful sound of the pipa, a Chinese stringed instrument, in The Night Thoughts, a piece by Wu Man.

"Wu Man's piece is from the Dunhuang caves," Ma said. "It's an interpretation of an actual music that they found from the eighth century. So it's all of those various things. I think for some reason when people talk about classical music, it's not part of world music. Classical music has always been, and will always be part of world music."

The concert also included a percussion piece called Weavings, and one written in traditional Thai style that also featured instruments from Laos and Vietnam. As the ensemble's artistic director, Ma says he always loves to bring together the modern and the traditional and break the boundaries of ethnicity and era.

Rather than a fixed group of musicians, the Silk Road Ensemble is a collective of nearly 60 musicians, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers. The ensemble also works on educational programs with universities around the world.