Who is Yo-Yo Ma? The American cellist changing the world through music

23 July 2024, 07:25

If ever one artist has crystallised the coming together of music and humanity, it’s the great cellist and musical collaborator Yo-Yo Ma.

Yo-Yo Ma is a very special sort of musician. He’s widely acknowledged as the greatest cellist of our time, with acclaimed recordings and sold-out concerts to adoring fans of all ages. But what makes this musician most remarkable is his ability to use his talents to connect across genres, disciplines, and social divides.

Whether he’s playing to political leaders, leading his silk-road ensemble, or bringing music and science together by playing his cello deep underground at the Large Hadron Collider, there’s always a message in his music. And as he proved in his poignant solo videos during the pandemic... if music heals, Yo-Yo Ma is the doctor.

Many will recognise his joyful smile or know him through his legendary Bach recordings – but with an artist like this, there’s always much to know and explore. Plus, he was on Sesame Street – you’ll want to read all about that.

Read more: Yo-Yo Ma playing Bach on a beach is proof that music has healing powers

Yo-Yo Ma | 'Prelude' from Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 | Classic FM Sessions

Where was Yo-Yo Ma born and who are his family?

The cellist was born in Paris in 1955 to Chinese parents. He was surrounded by music from the very beginning, his mother was a singer, and his father a violinist, composer and professor of music.

His parents migrated from China to France during Chinese Civil War, moving to New York when the young cellist was seven.

He began to play the violin, then the viola, before taking up the cello at age four. When he was seven years old he and his family moved to New York and soon afterwards he appeared on American television in a concert conducted by Leonard Bernstein. When he was aged seven, he also played for President John F. Kennedy.

Read more: When 7-year-old Yo-Yo Ma played for President John F. Kennedy as a child cello prodigy

Yo-Yo Ma studied cello at the Juilliard School of Music in New York before following a postgraduate arts education at Harvard University. He released his first recordings in the late 1970s, and quickly found a huge audience drawn to his style and artistic charisma.

In 1986, while at the height of his fame as a young cellist, he appeared on Sesame Street – playing not to a president, but to Hoots, the music-loving owl.

Sesame Street: Yo Yo Ma: The Jam Session

How many American Presidents has Yo-Yo Ma played for?

In a remarkable statistic, Yo-Yo Ma has performed for nine American presidents. It began with that performance for President John F. Kennedy. Over 55 years later in 2021, he played on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.

His performance alongside a quartet of start musicians at President Obama’s 2009 inauguration had a noteworthy fact beyond the historical importance of the occasion. Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriela Montero, and clarinettist Anthony McGill all had to mime a performance John Williams’ ‘Air and Simple Gifts’, to a prerecorded track. It wasn’t the occasion that was the concern, but rather the sub-zero temperatures that day, and the risk of frozen instruments not making any sound.

In 2018, the cellist played for President Trump and other world leaders at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris to mark the centenary of the World War One Armistice. On that occasion he played a poignant Sarabande by Bach.

“We live in a time where many things feel kind of fractured,” he told Classic FM in 2018 interview. “There’s an absence of really constructive civil discourse... Bach, music, is definitely a convener of different people and music certainly is a great convener, bringing people together.”

Read more: Yo-Yo Ma brings world to tears with poignant ‘Amazing Grace’ at inauguration concert

In 2006, the cellist was designated a United Nations Messenger of Peace – a title bestowed by the United Nations to “distinguished individuals, carefully selected from the fields of art, music, literature and sports, who have agreed to help focus worldwide attention on the work of the United Nations.”

In 2011, Ma was honoured with the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Obama.

What are Yo-Yo Ma’s best recordings?

Yo-Yo Ma has recorded more than 120 albums, and is the winner of 19 Grammy Awards – so in naming his greatest recordings and musical projects, there’s a lot to choose from.

The cellist is recorded all of the great concertos for cello, and the masterpieces of Elgar, Dvořák and Shostakovich.

He is also highly regarded as a performer of chamber music, with his recordings of Brahms cello sonatas and Beethoven piano trios considered among the very best. But there is so much more than the conventional classical canon.

Yo-Yo Ma has one of the most eclectic repertoires in classical music. He has performed and recorded Baroque pieces on period instruments, American bluegrass music, traditional Chinese melodies, Argentinian tangos, Brazilian music as well as soundtracks to the films Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon and Memoirs of a Geisha.

The cellist has a long connection and musical friendship with composer John Williams. He was featured on John Williams’ soundtrack to the 1997 film Seven Years in Tibet. A few years earlier, the composer had written a cello concerto for the star soloist.

“Over the years we’ve become close friends, and I looked forward to writing for him with great pleasure. Given the broad technical and expressive arsenal available in Yo-Yo’s work, planning the concerto was a joy,” the composer once said.

Yo-Yo Ma is the founder of the Silk Road Project, a musical and educational initiative promoting the study of the cultural, artistic and intellectual traditions along the ancient Silk Road route.

Meryl Streep gives a poetry reading while Yo-Yo Ma plays the cello

But most of all, Yo-Yo Ma will be forever associated with the music of Joahnn Sebastian Bach. He has recorded the Bach Cello Suites three times over his career. There is really nothing better than this legendary cellist and the greatest works for a solo instrument.

The Prelude to Bach’s Cello Suite in C is one of the most-streamed classical music pieces in the world. But all six suites capture his unique energy, insight and artistry – and always with a message beyond the music.

In September 2018, Ma told Classic FM he believed the music of Bach could bring people together at times of division and fracture in society. “He feels your pain, he feels my pain, he feels everybody’s pain and everybody’s joy. People go through illnesses, exams and difficult periods… and somehow it’s supportive.”

Yo-Yo Ma plays J.S. Bach's Cello Suite No. 1 | Classic FM Sessions

What is Yo-Yo Ma doing now?

For this humanitarian, you can always be sure of two things – there will always be concerts sharing beautiful music, and projects aimed at bringing the world closer together.

The cellist regularly tours around the world, playing at great concert halls and iconic events. Find out more on his website here.

His current project is called Our Common Nature, and explores the places where nature, people and music come together.

He writes: “Culture makes us human. It is how we create trust, wonder, faith, belonging. Culture helps us care for one another and for the world we share. It reminds us that nature is part of our humanity and that it contains an imagination greater than our own.”