Quote

One is that you have to take time, lots of time, to let an idea grow from within. The second is that when you sign on to something, there will be issues of trust, deep trust, the way the members of a string quartet have to trust one another.

Yo-Yo Ma

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Yo-Yo Ma
Age: 68
Born: 1955
Born: October 7
Actor
Cellist
Composer
Music Pedagogue
Musician
Paris
France
Yo Yo Ma
YoYo Ma
Idea
Members
Another
Deep
Ideas
Second
Quartet
Take
Grow
Quartets
Something
Trust
String
Way
Issues
Strings
Time
Grows
Lots
Within
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Our cultural strength has always been derived from our diversity of understanding and experience.
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There are limits to how much sound a cello can make. That's part of the framing of acoustical instruments. Finding what those limits might be, and then trying to suggest perhaps even the illusion of going beyond is part of that kind of effort.
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Bach takes you to a very quiet place within yourself, to the inner core, a place where you are calm and at peace.
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We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making.
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But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music.
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When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.
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There's a part of me that's always charging ahead. I'm the curious kid, always going to the edge.
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Culture opens our hearts to one another. And the currency in culture is not money, but trust.
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Many of the Central Asians know Russian, and Ted Levin speaks it fluently. I speak Chinese, but Mongolian is completely different, so we had to have translators.
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Practicing is not only playing your instrument, either by yourself or rehearsing with others - it also includes imagining yourself practicing. Your brain forms the same neural connections and muscle memory whether you are imagining the task or actually doing it.
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As a musician I'm kind of nomadic, Waldo-like. I show up in different places, and I'm witness to unbelievable things.
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I remember when I was growing up. My great wish was to understand who I was and how I fit in the world.
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My teacher, my great cello teacher Leonard Rose, was such a great cellist, and nurturing man, very patient. But I grew up not only admiring him, but obviously Casals, Rostrotovich, Jacqueline du Pre, and many others, including many of my peers and contemporaries.
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One of the marks of a great teacher lies not only in an ability to impart knowledge but also in knowing when to encourage a student to go off on his own.
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When people ask me how they should approach performance, I always tell them the professional musician should aspire to the state of the beginner.
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I think of a piece of music as something that comes alive when it is being performed, and I feel that my role in the transmission of music is to be its best advocate at that moment.
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Children, in a way, are constant learners. Certainly sponge-like. Absorbing everything without careful analysis, even though, at the same time, they are certainly capable of incredible insights.
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As a child, you respond physically, tactically. You're delighted by sound, you're delighted by recognizing something. It's like hide and seek. Is it there? Is it not there? Is it this note? Is it not this note? It's one fantastic game.
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My involvement in the political arena is to make sure there's a place for culture.
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Classical music is one of the best things that ever happened to mankind. If you get introduced to it in the right way, it becomes your friend for life.
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