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Music has always been transnational.

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
Always
Transnational
Creativity
Music

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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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Good things happen when you meet strangers.
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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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In performance, we have a greater purpose. The greater purpose is that we're communing together, and we want this moment to be really special for all of us. Because otherwise, why bother to have come at all? It's not about proving anything. It's about sharing something.
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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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I think anybody who goes away finds you appreciate home more when you return.
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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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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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Our cultural strength has always been derived from our diversity of understanding and experience.
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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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One of the things I love about music is live performance.
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The role of the musician is to go from concept to full execution. Put another way, it's to go from understanding the content of something to really learning how to communicate it and make sure it's well-received and lives in somebody else.
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Sharing is a much better way to communicate than proving.
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After reaching 50, I began to wonder what the root of life is.
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When we enlarge our view of the world, we deepen our understanding of our own lives.
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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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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 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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I've been traveling all over the world for 25 years, performing, talking to people, studying their cultures and musical instruments, and I always come away with more questions in my head than can be answered.
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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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