Mike Block is a pioneering multi-style cellist, singer, composer and educator, hailed by Yo-Yo Ma as the “ideal musician of the 21st century.” His last SMF appearance was in 2014, when he also worked as a clinician in the Acoustic Music Seminar. In this special performance, Block welcomes his Silk Road Ensemble bandmate, tabla player Sandeep Das, for a duo set that The New York Times once reviewed as a “breathless duet… Half dance, half dare, it exemplified much of the interaction between the musicians, which turns any performance into a visual spectacle.” Bengali musician Das made his stage debut in India in 1986 at age 15 with sitar maestro Ravi Shankar, and has since become recognized as one of the world’s leading tabla maestros.


Sam Reider and the Human Hands is a collective of virtuoso jazz and bluegrass musicians from Brooklyn. Along with Reider on accordion and piano, the ensemble includes violinist Alex Hargreaves (Turtle Island Quartet, Sarah Jarosz, Béla Fleck), saxophonist Eddie Barbash (Late Night with Stephen Colbert, Jon Batiste and Stay Human), guitarist Grant Gordy (David Grisman, Darol Anger, Aoife O’Donovan), mandolinist Dominick Leslie (Michael Daves, Tony Trischka, The Deadly Gentlemen), guitarist Roy Williams (Stephane Wrembel) and bassist Dave Speranza (Jim Campilongo).