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Music has always been transnational people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.

Yo-Yo Ma

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Yo-Yo Ma
Age: 69
Born: 1955
Born: October 7
Actor
Cellist
Composer
Music Pedagogue
Musician
Paris
France
Yo Yo Ma
YoYo Ma
Music
Classical
Always
Pick
World
Interests
People
Picks
Certainly
Influence
Transnational
Interest
Absorbed
Whatever
Influences

More quotes by Yo-Yo Ma

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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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The thing that I've always been slightly frustrated with, was that the idea of a CD is kind of confined to a material possession that you can put on a shelf. And the idea of music, for me, is always about both the communication and the sharing of content. And so the interactive part is missing.
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Our cultural strength has always been derived from our diversity of understanding and experience.
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Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.
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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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We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making.
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You must have a reason to be in the places to which you go, and you must do only things that you really care about.
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Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something, then you're more willing to take risks.
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Each day I move toward that which I do not understand. The result is a continuous accidental learning which constantly shapes my life.
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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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I want to investigate different cultures, to see how their identities and values affect their music. It's one way I can get to know our world, at least to a certain depth.
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Once something is memorable, it's living and you're using it. That to me is the foundation of a creative society.
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With every year of playing, you want to relax one more muscle. Why? Because the more tense you are, the less you can hear.
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The tango is really a combination of many cultures, though it eventually became the national music of Argentina.
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I play an instrument that has four strings, and I'm still trying to get it right. What I've tried to do in the process of playing these four strings is to try and understand the people I meet, the stories they have to tell. And then become an advocate for them and their stories through music.
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I learn something not because I have to, but because I really want to. That's the same view I have for performing. I'm performing because I really want to, not because I have to bring bread back home.
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What came up at age 49 is I realized that of all the things I'm interested in, the thing I'm most interested in is figuring out what makes people tick, why people think the way they do, why they act the way they do. And I realized that music is such a great way to investigate why people do what they do.
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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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One of the things I love about music is live performance.
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