Jeanne Nagle - Yo-Yo Ma: Grammy Award-Winning Cellist

Published in 2017 by Enslow Publishing, LLC.

101 W. 23rd Street, Suite 240, New York, NY 10011

Copyright 2017 by Lisa A. Chippendale

Additional materials copyright 2017 by Enslow Publishing, LLC.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced by any means without the written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Dat a

Names: Nagle, Jeanne, author.| Chippendale, Lisa A., author.

Title: Yo-Yo Ma : Grammy award-winning cellist / Jeanne Nagle and Lisa A. Chippendale. Description: New York, NY : Enslow Publishing, 2017. | Series: Influential Asians | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2015050586 | ISBN 9780766078994 (library bound)

Subjects: LCSH: Ma, Yo-Yo 1955Juvenile literature. | CellistsBiographyJuvenile literature.

Classification: LCC ML3930.M11 N34 2017 | DDC 787.4092dc23 LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015050586

Printed in the United States of America

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Portions of this book appeared in the book Yo-Yo Ma: A Cello Superstar Brings Music to the World.

Photo Credits: Cover, p. 1 Linda Davidson/The Washington Post via Getty Images; pp. 6, 41, 45, 81 Waring Abbott/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images; p. 10 Ebet Roberts/Red-ferns/Getty Images; p. 15 Bill Johnson/The Denver Post via Getty Images; pp. 19, 34 Erich Auerbach/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; p. 21 CBS via Getty Images; p. 26 AP Images/ Gregory Payan; p. 31 Harvard Yearbook Publications; p. 38 Anthony Stewart/National Geographic/Getty Images; p. 39 Carlo Allegri/Getty Images for LAPA; p. 48 Andreas Rentz/Getty Images; p. 50 Alain BENAINOUS/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images; p. 53 Wikia/ http://muppet.wikia.com/Yo-yo_ma_1.jpg/CC-BY-SA ; p. 58 Brill/ullstein bild via Getty Images; p. 60 Gil.K/Shutterstock.com; p. 65 Ron Sachs-Pool/Getty Images; p. 67 Rischgitz/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; p. 69 Boris Spremo/Toronto Star via Getty Images; p. 73 David Corio/Redferns/Getty Images; p. 75 Laura Cooksey/Epoch Times; p. 77 KIMIMASA MAYAMA/AFP/Getty Images; p. 87 Hiroyuki Ito/Hulton Archive/Getty Images; p. 91 Tony Bock/Toronto Star via Getty Images; p. 92 TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/ Getty Images; p. 97 Dominic Chavez/The Boston Globe via Getty; p. 103 Win McNamee/ Getty Images; p. 105 ROBERT A. REEDER/AFP/Getty Images; p. 108 JIM WATSON/ AFP/Getty Images.

/ JOHN A. TORRES.

T hey say that you cannot really know a person until you spend time with him or her. When I worked for the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra in the early 1990s, I spent time with, and consequently got to know, many celebrities and musiciansincluding world-class cellist Yo-Yo Ma.

In addition to being incredibly talented, Ma turned out to be everything one might hope: kind, thoughtful, gracious. What I did not expect was how funny he could be, almost a little goofy. One example of his sense of humor occurred when we were driving to a performance. Disguised in a pair of wrap-around sunglasses, he decided to call himself Bubba. As this supposedly anonymous person, he waved to people on the street as we drove to Eastman Theatre, calling, Hey, hi, to them out the open car window.

Once on stage, however, Ma was nowhere near anonymous. Hearing and watching him play in the packed theater was thrilling. Backstage, after performing, he appeared to be in a trance, no doubt swept away by the music himself.

Yo-Yo Ma is dedicated to music in all its forms. He also is understandably proud of his Chinese heritage, which influences his work and other aspects of his life. From his Silk Road Ensemble, noted for performing music with an Asian flair, to being a founding member of the Committee of 100, a nonprofit that addresses concerns of Chinese-Americans, Ma has proven himself a capable and enthusiastic representative of Asian culture.

Of course, to me, hell always be plain old Bubba.

Yo-Yo Ma plays a child's cello while store patrons look on at a New York City music store in 1998. Ma has devoted his life not only to mastering the cello, but also to bringing music to the public.

N ew York City had seen its share of street performers, but perhaps none quite like this. In 1997, classical music icon Yo-Yo Ma had stationed himself in the middle of a busy intersection near Manhattans Times Square. His cello case was open, empty except for a sign thanking passers-by for any spare change they might drop onto its felt lining. The cello itself was in his capable hands. Ma was performing a piece by Johann Sebastian Bachas a panhandler, or beggar.

This scene was not a way to raise money for struggling symphony orchestras, nor was it merely a stunt. Ma was filming an episode named Six Gestures for a PBS special series, which aired in April 1998. There is a logical explanation as to why this classically trained cellist was scrounging for change in Times Square as part of a film, rather than appearing on stage with a world-class orchestra. Ma has long been interested in taking risks and exploring different kinds of music and ways of performing. Six Gestures was an experimental way of sharing his art and passion with others.

Meaningful Music

The six suites written by Bach for solo cello are very important to Yo-Yo Ma. Each suite is made up of six different sections, called movements, and is about twenty to thirty minutes long. The suites were among the first pieces of music that Ma learned when he started playing the cello at age four. He recorded all six suites soon after he became a professional cellist, and the recording won him his first Grammy Award. One of the movements from the Fifth Cello Suite was the last piece of music Ma played for his father before he died. It is no wonder, then, that he chose this music, by this composer, to be the subject of the experimental piece of performance art that became the Inspired by Bach series on PBS.

Mixed Media

In the early 1990s, Ma decided he wanted to see how creative artists who were not musicians would interpret the cello suites. He approached film directors, dancers, and a garden designer, among others, about making a series of films based on the six cello suites by Bach. In the first installment of the six-part venture, Six Gestures, Ma chose to work with British ice dancers Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean. The pair dominated world icedancing competition in the early 1980s. Torvill and Dean invented new routines for each movement of the Sixth Suite.

Ma made the films for television so that he could bring Bach to a new audience, one that avoids concert halls featuring traditional classical music.