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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: 68
Born: 1955
Born: October 7
Actor
Cellist
Composer
Music Pedagogue
Musician
Paris
France
Yo Yo Ma
YoYo Ma
World
Interests
People
Picks
Certainly
Influence
Transnational
Interest
Absorbed
Whatever
Influences
Music
Classical
Always
Pick

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After reaching 50, I began to wonder what the root of life is.
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When your heart and your mind are engaged, you cannot go wrong.
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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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I don't always have a five-year plan. One thing you must do in life is keep your learning curve as high as possible.
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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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When we have a good balance between thinking and feeling... our actions and lives are always the richer for it.
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Sound is ephemeral, fleeting, but some sort of a physical manifestation can help you hold on to it longer in time. I'm sure of this I've always thought the sound that you make is just the tip of the iceberg, like the person that you see physically is just the tip of the iceberg as well.
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I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.
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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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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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We may be coming to a new golden age of instrument making.
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I really would like to be involved in things and to understand things, and in some ways you've got to be careful what you wish for because I feel very, very blessed to have such an interesting life and to be able to have little snapshots of lives of people from many different parts of the world.
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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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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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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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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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You go through phases. You have to reinvent reasons for playing, and one year's answer might not do for another.
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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 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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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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