The ARCO Project & Festival
Arts round Cultures/Creativity & Openness
Who we are?
The ARCO Project is a dynamic creative performance group applying the idea of All-Around-Art, founded by violist Qi Yun (Clara Polka). Inspired by Silkroad’s Global Musician Workshop, the group is composed of extraordinary musicians representing musical and Artistic treasures from diverse cultures all over the world.
The Global Musician Workshop (GMW) is Silkroad’s flagship musician training program, designed to foster a community of globally minded musicians, helping artists to learn from one another’s traditions and incorporate them into their own voices. The GMW faculty has included director and cellist Mike Block, pipa master Wu Man, and tabla maestro Sandeep Das, among other stellar artists.
Inspired by these faculty and the exchange of ideas and creativity at GMW, The ARCO Project is a group of artistic visionaries who aim to explore the magical performing language of the world, transcending old boundaries to create something new. Our exuberant members come from versatile stylistic and cultural backgrounds, and together through our work we seek to free the heart to fly to every corner of the world, to travel with ear and sense, and bring together even the most distant identities or cultures. Let music speak for us, understanding and sharing the greatness in every humankind, spreading love, energy, enthusiasm, power, and freedom all over the world.
An idea initiated by Qi Yun, All-Around-Art, is an openness, exploration and creative application to every art forms/expressions, for the ultimate, powerful, provoking, interactive and direct performing and artistic experience to come.
The Founder
Qi Yun
Clara Polka
Multi-style Violist, Director, Dancer, Performer
Founder of The ARCO Project and The Voiceless Project Berlin
A special performer and violist, Qi Yun is a graduates of Hochschule Fuer Musik Hanns Eisler and University of Art Berlin. She studied with viola legend Yuri Bashmet, Garth Knox, Walter Kuessner as well as principal and members of the Berliner Phil. She is recipient of China National Scholarship For Exceptional Artist. She is First Prize winners of International Knopf Competition Germany, Euterpe International Competition Italy, American Great Composers Competition and Doublestop Foundation Competition New York. Awarded full scholarship, she performed with New York String Seminar, Heifetz International Music Festival, Chautauque Summer Festival, Carl Flesch Academy and International Musicians Seminar at Prussia Cove UK. She joined the first and second “Guangdong Music Culture Week”working with Yo-Yo Ma and conductor Michael Stern and the faculty from the Silkroad Ensemble. She founded the “ARCO” and the “Voiceless” performance Project with an outstanding group of young artists.
She studied in Masterclass with Thomas Riebl, Nobuko Imai, Hartmut Rohde, Atar Arad, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Micheal Tree, Heidi Castleman, Wu man, Bruce Molsky, Aoifer O’Donovan, Mike Block and Ralph Kirshbaum. In concerts she collaborated with Atar Arad, Mark Kaplan, Ralph Kirshbaum, Yeal Weiss, Anne Sophie Mutter, Walter Kuessner, Tabea Zimmermann, Wu Man, Bruce Molsky, Aoifer O’Donovan and Robert Vernon. She was scholarship and instrument loan recipient of Deutsche Musikleben Stiftung, Ritter Stiftung Hamburg and Beare's International Violin Society. She was principal violist of Shanghai Philharmonics, Berlin Echo Ensemble, Berlin Sibelius Symphony, Hans Eisler Chamber Orchestra, Philharmonishes Kammerorchester Wernigrode, University of Michigan Symphony, China Youth Orchestra and was appointed youngest principal violist of China Philharmonics.
Artists and Members
Irina Solinas
Artistic director
of the bounding project Mame, Italy
After completing her studies cum laude at the "G. Verdi" Conservatory in Milan, she achieves a doctorate in chamber music at the"G. Frescobaldi" Conservatory, in Ferrara. She performed with orchestras under great conductor Riccardo Muti, Sir Jeffrey Tate, Gabriele Ferro.
Huda Asfour
is a performer, composer and engineer , collaborated with artists in Tunisia, Gaza, Ramallah, Egypt, Lebanon and the United States. Huda is the recipient of the 2009 Production Cultural Program by Al Mawred Al Thaqafi and the 2014 music production grant from the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture.
Ali Ceyhun Kartalsuna
Is a special drummer apply traditional folkstyles of Turkey ,Africa ,Cuba ,Egypt, India. He studied with famous percussionist Eguie Castrillo, Misirli Ahmet, Mike Ringquist, Mehmet Akatay. Performed regularily in Lincoln Center ,National Endowment for the Arts, In Philippines and Haiti Fashion week as well as music clubs in New York city, such as Pasha Lavo, Greenhouse,Tao, Kiss and Fly, Highline Ballroom and Club Arena.
