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Yo-Yo Ma – The Making of Six Evolutions – Bach: Cello Suites
Yo-Yo Ma – Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, Prélude (Official Video)
Yo-Yo Ma – Bach: Cello Suite No. 3 in C Major, Bourrée I and II
Yo-Yo Ma, Kathryn Stott – Lullaby (Brahms)
Brahms Piano Trio No. 1 in B Major – Movement I (excerpt)
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Photo by Austin Mann
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Photo by Jason Bell
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Photo by Jason Bell
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“Even at Red Rocks, a show business landmark where spectacle is an everyday occurrence, an appearance by classical musician Yo-Yo Ma was an extraordinary event.

Picture it — if you weren’t one of the 9,000 people who witnessed the concert live Wednesday evening — one man, one cello, two hours and 15 minutes of Bach. No light show, none of those electric guitar riffs or drum solos that the rock ‘n’ roll sanctuary is known for, a hushed crowd. Historic.

Ma played all six of Bach’s unaccompanied cello suites with barely time to breath in between. It was a music marathon, certainly for the audience, who even at classical events is never asked to sit still for so long without an intermission. And certainly for the 62-year-old cellist, craftily coordinating fingers and bow over four thin strings, churning out hundreds of thousands of notes, all from memory.

It sounds superhuman, but it was just the opposite. It was fully human, perfect and imperfect at the same time, easy and difficult, marked by attempt and reward. This is Ma’s skill. He doesn’t make his music something to marvel at. He makes it a gift. Created for you himself.”

The Denver Post

Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works for cello, bringing communities together to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.

Most recently, Yo-Yo began Our Common Nature, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. Our Common Nature follows the Bach Project, a 36-community, six-continent tour of J. S. Bach’s cello suites paired with local cultural programming. Both endeavors reflect Yo-Yo’s lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to understand how music helps us to imagine and build a stronger society.

Yo-Yo is an advocate for a future guided by humanity, trust, and understanding. Among his many roles, Yo-Yo is a United Nations Messenger of Peace, the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees, a member of the board of Nia Tero, the US-based nonprofit working in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and movements worldwide, and the founder of the global music collective Silkroad.

His discography of more than 120 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners) ranges from iconic renditions of the Western classical canon to recordings that defy categorization, such as “Hush” with Bobby McFerrin and the “Goat Rodeo Sessions” with Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Yo-Yo’s recent releases include “Six Evolutions,” his third recording of Bach’s cello suites, and “Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97 ‘Archduke,’” the third in a new series of Beethoven recordings with pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Leonidas Kavakos. Yo-Yo’s latest album, “Merci,” with pianist Kathryn Stott, features the music of Gabriel Fauré, following the arcs of Fauré’s inspiration and influence in a deeply personal expression of gratitude for the relationships that make music magic.

Yo-Yo was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the National Medal of the Arts (2001), the Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010), Kennedy Center Honors (2011), the Polar Music Prize (2012), and the Birgit Nilsson Prize (2022). He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.

Yo-Yo and his wife have two children. He plays three instruments: a 2003 instrument made by Moes & Moes, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice, and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.

OCTOBER 2024