Elements of music theatre, dramaturgical installations and chamber music pieces create a sound space between cultures, where lyrical grace meets archaic roughness: fairytale-like, improvisational, recitative, pulsating, experimental and meditative.

Chanyuan Zhao and Benjamin Leuschner form the "Duo SeidenStrasse", which has been giving concerts in Germany and abroad for more than 15 years and has developed a sound language that casts its own contemplative spell on the audience. Their music is a symbiosis of original Chinese and contemporary Western elements, which sometimes unfolds in a minimal-like, sometimes onomatopoeic, sometimes popularly structural way, but always condenses the moment like a sound sculpture. Their new concert programme "Crossing#Parallels" is conceptually a complete premiere, a sound performance that partly interweaves, partly contrasts the different elements.

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Chanyuan Zhao and Benjamin Leuschner founded the Duo SeidenStrasse in 2006 while they were still studying together at the Hochschule für Musik Köln/Wuppertal. After their first arrangements of Chinese traditionals, the duo devoted themselves intensively to conceptual improvisation and experimental sound research of transcultural modes of expression. Over the years, this has led to very varied concert engagements at renowned festivals in Germany and abroad, including Mawazine Festival Rabat Morocco, Alexandrina World Music Festival Egypt, Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival, Rheingau Music Festival, EXPERIMENTA Italy, Musikfest Stuttgart, ASEAN Music Week Nanning China, Festival Alte Musik Knechtsteden, Popoli Pop Cult Festival Italy. The duo is particularly interested in children's programmes with a focus on intercultural music education, including workshops and family concerts at the Philharmonie Essen and the Philharmonie Köln. The duo has also lived out its passion for improvisation in numerous silent film accompaniments and has been a regular guest at the Black Box Kino in the Landesmuseum Düsseldorf for many years. Duo SeidenStrasse won the NRW award at the world music competition “creole” 2008 and released two CD productions under their own label Ars Metaphonia.