Fiddler keeps friendship in tune

American fiddler Kyle Dillingham still remembers the moment that first forged his emotional connection with China.

It was June 2000, during his debut performance at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. After the concert, a young Chinese violin student approached him in tears.

"She said she had heard traditional Chinese music, American folk music and classical music all together on one stage," Dillingham recalls. "For her, music had always been a serious study. Nobody had ever shown her that it could also be joyful."

More than two decades after that visit, the Oklahoma-born musician continues to return to China with the same conviction: music can bridge cultures even during difficult moments in China-US relations.

Dillingham leads Horseshoe Road, an American folk band that has performed in more than 40 countries and regions. In 2020, he was named an "Ambassador of Goodwill" by the Oklahoma government.

Over the past two decades, he and his bandmates have traveled to China more than a dozen times for cultural exchange programs, building long-term friendships with people across the country.

Among the many places he has visited, Gansu province holds a particularly special place in his heart. He has traveled there seven times, drawn not only by the region's history and culture, but also by the longstanding sister-state relationship between Gansu and Oklahoma, established in 1985. Last year marked the 40th anniversary of the partnership.

"Whenever I think about China, Gansu is one of the first places that comes to mind," he says, describing the province as his "home in China".

Years of exchanges have also shaped the band's music. Dillingham and his fellow musicians frequently weave Chinese melodies into their performances, reimagining classic Chinese songs through Western instruments while blending elements from both musical traditions.

A milestone came in 2017, when Dillingham's band attended the Silk Road International Cultural Expo in Dunhuang, Gansu province, for the first time, bringing American folk music to the ancient Silk Road city.

"To play American folk music in a place with thousands of years of history and deep cultural exchanges between East and West felt historic to me," he says. "In a way, we were bringing American fiddle music to a new frontier."

What impressed him even more, he says, was how Dunhuang itself began shaping his artistic perspective.

"Perhaps when I return home, I can also bring some spirit and flavor of Dunhuang culture back to the United States," he says.

During visits to the Mogao Caves, Dillingham was particularly fascinated by the famous mural of the "reverse-playing pipa", an iconic image of cultural fusion along the Silk Road.

"To me, it beautifully represents the blending of Eastern and Western music," he says, "and today, performing Western fiddle music in Dunhuang feels like another expression of that same exchange."

He is equally captivated by the Silk Road's role in shaping musical traditions around the world.

"Oklahoma does not lie on the physical Silk Road, but I'd like to say that without the Silk Road, you wouldn't have traditional fiddle culture," he said, noting that bowed string instruments likely originated in Central Asia.

"These instruments made their way along the ancient Silk Road into Europe, where they became part of European musical tradition. Eventually, that musical tradition reached America, and I grew up playing fiddle music in Oklahoma because of those exchanges."