Director Morgan Neville strikes profound note in Yo-Yo Ma doc

Oscar winner celebrates Ma's Silk Road Ensemble in  The Music of Strangers

Filmmaker Morgan Neville in the offices of The Orchard in Hollywood. His new film is "The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble." Photo by Matt Carey 6/3/16

Yo-Yo Ma is one of the great figures of classical music, a star essentially since the age of seven.

Yet one of his signature musical endeavors, the Silk Road Ensemble, has gotten a lot of pushback from critics who think it somehow violates standards by mashing up musicians and traditional instruments from around the world.

Critics and viewers alike can judge for themselves by seeing Oscar winner Morgan Neville's new film, The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble. It focuses not only on the famed cellist but on some of his most compelling collaborators -- from Syria, Iran, China and Galicia.
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I figured out early on that maybe if I made documentaries about the things I was obsessed about then I could actually justify my obsession.

   --Director Morgan Neville

The Music of Strangers opened in theaters in New York and LA on Friday and will expand nationwide in the coming weeks. Nonfictionfilm.com spoke with Neville -- the director of several music-related documentaries among them the Academy Award-winning 20 Feet From Stardom -- the day after his documentary played at the Los Angeles Film Festival 

In the podcast he talked about his collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma, and his upcoming projects -- including his first scripted film.