Ma's mother, Marina Lu, was a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a violinist, composer[8] and professor of music at Nanjing National Central University (now relocated in Taoyuan, Taiwan; predecessor of the present-day Nanjing University and Southeast University). They both migrated from the Republic of China to France during the Chinese Civil War. Ma's sister, Yeou-Cheng Ma, played the violin and piano professionally before obtaining a medical degree from Harvard and becoming a pediatrician.[9] The family moved to New York City when Ma was seven.[10][11]
From the age of three, Ma played the drums, violin, piano, and later viola, but settled on the cello in 1960 at age four. When three-year-old Yo-Yo said he wanted a big instrument, his father went to see Etienne Vatelot, a foremost violin maker in Paris who, after a chat, lent him a 1/16th cello. He jokes that his first choice was the double bass due to its large size, but he compromised and took up the cello instead. While Hiao-Tsiun handled much of his son's early music education, he eventually conceded that Yo-Yo required a more skilled teacher, and signed his son up for cello lessons with the renowned Mme Michelle Lepinte. He began performing before audiences at age five and played for presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy when he was seven.[12][13] At age eight, he appeared on American television with his sister[14] in an event introduced by Leonard Bernstein. In 1964, Isaac Stern introduced them on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and they performed the Sonata of Sammartini. After moving to New York, Ma enrolled at the Juilliard School, where he studied under renowned cellist Leonard Rose, and attended Trinity School in New York but transferred to the Professional Children's School, where he graduated at age 15.[15] He appeared as a soloist with the Harvard Radcliffe Orchestra in a performance of Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations.
Ma attended Columbia University, but dropped out. He later enrolled at Harvard College. Prior to entering Harvard, Ma played in the Marlboro Festival Orchestra under the direction of cellist, conductor and Ma's childhood hero Pablo Casals. He spent four summers at the Marlboro Music Festival after meeting and falling in love with Mount Holyoke College sophomore and festival administrator Jill Hornor during his first summer there in 1972.[16]
Even before that time, Ma gained fame and performed with many of the world's major orchestras. He has also played chamber music, often with pianist Emanuel Ax, with whom he has a close friendship from their days at Juilliard. Ma received his bachelor's degree in anthropology from Harvard in 1976,[17] and in 1991 received an honorary doctorate from Harvard.[18]
In addition to his prolific musical career, Ma collaborated in 1999 with landscape architects to design a Bach-inspired garden. Known as the Music Garden, it interprets Bach's Suite No. 1 in G Major for unaccompanied cello (BWV 1007), where the garden's sections were designed to correspond with the suite's dance movements.[19] Toronto enthusiastically embraced the design, originally planned for Boston, and it was subsequently built in the Harbourfront neighborhood.[20]
Ma was named Peace Ambassador by then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in January 2006.[21] He is a founding member of the influential Chinese-American Committee of 100, which addresses the concerns of Americans of Chinese heritage.[22]
In 2010, Ma was named Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He launched the Citizen Musician initiative partnership in partnership with the orchestra's music director, Riccardo Muti.[28] Also in 2010, he appeared on a solo album by guitarist Carlos Santana, Guitar Heaven: The Greatest Guitar Classics of All Time, playing alongside Santana and singer India Arie on a Beatles classic, While My Guitar Gently Weeps.
In 2015, Ma performed with singer-songwriter and guitarist James Taylor on three tracks of Taylor's chart-topping album Before This World: You And I Again. In 2019, Ma directed the orchestra at the annual Youth Music Culture Guangdong. Ma is represented by the independent artist management firm Opus 3 Artists.[29] Ma contributed to the charity tribute album The Metallica Blacklist, released in September 2021, backing Miley Cyrus on a cover of the Metallica song "Nothing Else Matters".[30]
Ma formed his own collective, the Silk Road Ensemble, named after the route across Asia which for more than 2,000 years was used for trade between Europe and China. His goal was to bring together musicians from diverse countries that were historically linked via the Silk Road.[32] The ensemble's recordings are issued on the Sony Classical label. He also founded the Silk Road Connect, an educational pilot program for children from middle schools in the United States, including New York City.[33]
Playing style
Yo-Yo Ma has been referred to by critics as "omnivorous" and possesses an eclectic repertoire.[34] In addition to numerous recordings of the standard classical repertoire, he has recorded Baroque pieces using period instruments; American bluegrass music; traditional Chinese melodies, including the soundtrack to the film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; the tangos of Argentinian composer Astor Piazzolla; Brazilian music, recording traditional and contemporary songs composed by Antônio Carlos Jobim and Pixinguinha; a collaboration with Bobby McFerrin (where Ma admitted to being terrified by McFerrin's improvisation); and the music of modern minimalistPhilip Glass, in such works as the 2002 Naqoyqatsi.
Ma's primary performance instrument is the Davidov cello, made in 1712 by Antonio Stradivari.[7] It was previously owned by Jacqueline du Pré, who bequeathed it to him. Du Pré voiced her frustration with the cello's "unpredictability", but Ma attributed du Pré's sentiment to her impassioned style of playing, adding that the Stradivarius cello must be "coaxed" by the player.[36] Prior to the Davidov, he performed on a 1722 Matteo Gofriller cello which he used for much of his early career. The instrument was previously in the possession of the French cellist Pierre Fournier.[37]
Ma also plays on a 1733 Domenico Montagnana cello, named the "Petunia". In 2005, it was valued at US$2.5million (US$3.9million in 2023 prices). A student approached Ma after one of his classes in Salt Lake City and asked if the cello had a nickname. Ma replied, "No, but if I play for you, will you name it?" The student chose Petunia, and it stuck.[38] In 1999, Ma inadvertently left the cello in a taxicab in New York City, but it was quickly returned undamaged.[39] That year, when its neck was damaged during X-ray baggage inspection, he borrowed the Pawle Stradivarius cello from the Chimei Museum for a concert in Taiwan. The damage was repaired in time, but Ma played both Petunia and Pawle in the concert nonetheless.[40][41][42]
Ma also owns a modern cello made by Peter and Wendela Moes of Warrenton, Virginia, one of carbon fiber by the Luis and Clark company of Boston,[43] and a Samuel Zygmuntowicz cello. According to Zygmuntowicz, he "wants to give (Ma) a reason to leave his Montagnana at home."[44]
Notable performances
Ma with Condoleezza Rice after performing a duet at the presentation of the 2001 National Medal of Arts and National Humanities Medal Awards
He performed John Williams's "Air and Simple Gifts" at the first inauguration of Barack Obama on January 20, 2009, along with Itzhak Perlman (violin), Gabriela Montero (piano), and Anthony McGill (clarinet). While the quartet played live, the music, played simultaneously over speakers and on television, was a recording made two days prior due to concerns over the cold weather damaging the instruments. Ma said, "A broken string was not an option. It was wicked cold."[47]
On May 3, 2009, Ma performed the world premiere of Bruce Adolphe's "Self Comes to Mind" for solo cello and two percussionists with John Ferrari and Ayano Kataoka at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. The work is based on a poetic description written for the composer of the evolution of brain into mind by neuroscientist Antonio Damasio. A film of brain scans provided by Hanna Damasio, and other images, were coordinated with the performance.
On October 3, 2009, Ma appeared with Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper at the National Arts Centre gala in Ottawa. Harper, a fan of The Beatles, played the piano and sang a rendition of "With a Little Help from My Friends" while Ma accompanied him on cello. On October 16, 2011, Ma performed at the memorial of Steve Jobs at Stanford University's Memorial Church.[49]
In 2011, Ma performed with American dancer Charles "Lil Buck" Riley in the United States and in China at the U.S.-China Forum on the Arts and Culture.[50]
On September 9, 2015, Ma performed all six of Bach's cello suites at the Royal Albert Hall (London) as part of the BBC Proms season.
On September 12, 2017, Ma performed all six of Bach's cello suites at the Hollywood Bowl (Los Angeles). After the first three suites, there was a "ten-minute pause" (as the Bowl video screen described it). The audience of around 17,000 also heard him play an encore, a tribute to "cellist Pablo Casals, who as a 13-year-old in 1890 discovered an old copy of the Bach suites in a secondhand music store, bringing them to modern attention. Ma's memorable last words were, "If there are any 13-year-here—don't throw anything away."[52]
On November 11, 2018, Ma performed at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, with violinist Renaud Capuçon, in front of a crowd of world leaders during a ceremony marking the centenary of the armistice that ended World War I.[53]
On June 20, 2019, Ma performed the Bach Complete Cello Suites in plein air at Jay Pritzker Pavilion in Chicago, Illinois. The free performance attracted what might have been his largest audience, with a pavilion capacity of 11,000, and many thousands more listening from surrounding Millennium Park.
On September 14, 2021, Ma again performed Bach's six cello suites at the Hollywood Bowl, this time without intermission, pausing only briefly for applause between suites, and to announce his dedications for two of them.
Media appearances
Ma appeared as himself in an episode ("My Music Rules") of the animated children's television series Arthur, and on The West Wing (the episode "Noël"), where he played the prelude to Bach's Cello Suite No.1 at a Congressional Christmas party. He made five appearances on Sesame Street, all of which first aired during the show's 17th season in 1986. He appeared in The Simpsons episode "Puffless", where he played a serenade and theme music. Ma's likeness appeared in another Simpsons episode, "Missionary: Impossible", but he was played by regular Simpsons cast member Hank Azaria rather than Ma himself. Ma appeared twice on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, developed a friendship with creator and host Fred Rogers, and later received the inaugural Fred Rogers Legacy Award.
Ma was often invited to press events by Apple Inc. and Pixar CEO Steve Jobs, performed during the company's major events, and appeared in a commercial for the Macintosh computer. Ma's Bach recordings were used in a memorial video released by Apple on the first anniversary of Jobs's death.[59]
Ma was a guest on the "Not My Job" segment of Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! on April 7, 2007, where he won for listener Thad Moore.[60]
Since 1978, Ma has been married to Jill Hornor, an arts consultant.[69] They have two children, Nicholas and Emily.[11][70] Although he personally considers it the "worst epithet he's ever faced," he was "tagged" in 2001 as "Sexiest Classical Musician" by People.[71] He has continued to receive such accolades over the years, including from AARP in 2012, when Ma was named one of the "21 sexiest men over 50".[72]
According to research presented by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. for the PBS series Faces of America, a relative hid the Ma family genealogy in his home in China to save it from destruction during the Cultural Revolution. Ma's paternal ancestry can be traced back 18 generations to the year 1217. The genealogy was compiled in the 18th century by an ancestor, tracing everyone with the surname Ma, through the paternal line, back to one common ancestor in the 3rd century BC. Ma's generation name, Yo, was decided by his fourth great grand-uncle, Ma Ji Cang, in 1755.[73][74] DNA research revealed that Ma is distantly related to actress Eva Longoria.[75]
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↑ Salzman, Mark (2001). Classic Yo-Yo (Media notes). Yo-Yo Ma. Sony. 089667. Archived from the original on February 4, 2008. Retrieved January 14, 2008.
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