Produced in cooperation with Prague's Studio Zamba, Silk Road is part of the ongoing efforts of master drummer Hearn Gadbois and Oriental dancer Rena Milgrom to share onstage what they have gleaned from their musical expeditions in Central Asia.

The concert series is also designed to showcase artists from Central Europe's growing Central Asian expat community. In previous years, the Gadbois-Milgrom-Zambra collaborations have included events with artists such as Mahabaub Khan from Pakistan and Maya Sapera from Rajasthan, as well as Prague's own Central Asian Prague Ensemble.

Sunday's Silk Road event at the city library will include Gadbois and Milgrom performing dances and music culled from India, Iran and Uzbekistan. Local recording artist Feng-yün Song will also perform songs she learned in the remote autonomous regions of China. Echoing Silk Road's most western connection, Andalusian guitarist Shahab Tolouie from Iran will perform flamenco with a strong Persian Sufi spin. All these artists, with the exception of the Moravian-born Milgrom, are expats living in Prague.

Minnesota-born Gadbois' trek on the Silk Road trek started in the United States, working with the likes of Yoko Ono, Patti Smith and Meredith Monk, and involved intensive Asian musical practice both in New York City and in Prague. Gadbois took early inspiration from an Afghan music recording he found in a Minneapolis library as a teenager in the '70s that launched him on a lifetime of mastering Asian percussion. Even though Gadbois has made musical expeditions to destinations as distant as Rajasthan and Uzbekistan, not all of his life has been spent on the Silk Road. During the '80s, he was based in New York as a member of a band called the Saqqara Dogs, known for their exotic-flavored dance-trance sound.

When, in the '90s, Gadbois found his talents in increasing demand as a session player, he leveraged his spare time to master the art of musical instrument carpentry, with a focus on building Asian instruments. In 2001, he moved to Prague and soon found his deep knowledge of percussion in demand, both as a teacher and as a performer. His work in the Czech Republic has included collaborations with Vladímir Vaclávek and Pavel Fajt, but lately his focus has been more on the Silk Road sounds from places like Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

Gadbois recently returned from a research expedition with Milgrom to Uzbekistan, where he says they found a wide range of musical expression. From stately court music to loud wedding music, he found it all "downright shamanic."