Further Silk Road travel is transformative

Yo-Yo Ma’s musical adventures have taken him across the length and breadth of global culture.

His Silk Road ensemble -- formed to explore the music of the trade routes that historically brought goods, religions and ideas in both directions between East and West -- has been one of his most intriguing and successful accomplishments since its first recording in 2002.

Sunday night’s concert at the Hollywood Bowl revealed that the ensemble, which has included many of the same members since its inception, has become a smoothly integrated musical collective in the past two years.

The music spanned a panoply of sounds and textures combining instruments from East and West, from violin section and Ma’s cello to the Chinese pipa and sheng, from the Persian kamanche and ney flute to Indian tabla drums. It was enhanced further by the remarkable vocalizing of Mongolian singer Ganbaatar Khongorzul.

Ma’s contributions to the evening were as impressive as one can always anticipate from this superb, eclectic artist.

He started the evening playing a two-stringed Mongolian morin khuur before moving to cello. And he was as facile with the piquant scales of the Persian music as he was with the layered timbres of the Chinese compositions and the buoyant rhythms of Roma Gypsy works.

Other appealing moments were provided by the extraordinary singing of Wu Tong, the fast-fingered pipa playing of Wu Man, the virtuoso kamanche of Kayhan Kalhor, and the airy ney of Siamak Jahangiry.

The concert’s real achievement, however, was the convincing way in which Ma’s leadership transformed works such as the Chinese “Ambush From Ten Sides” and the Persian “Blue as the Turquoise Night of Neyshabur” into a universal musical experience.