Carnegie Hall

Yo-Yo Ma’s multifaceted career is testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works for cello, bringing communities together to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Mr. Ma strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.

Most recently, Mr. Ma began Our Common Nature, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. Our Common Nature follows the Bach Project, a 36-community, six-continent tour of J. S. Bach’s cello suites paired with local cultural programming. Both endeavors reflect Mr. Ma’s lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition in order to understand how music helps us to imagine and build a stronger society.

Mr. Ma is an advocate for a future guided by humanity, trust, and understanding. Among many other roles, he is a United Nations Messenger of Peace; the first artist appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees; a member of the board of Nia Tero, a US-based nonprofit organization that works in solidarity with Indigenous peoples and movements worldwide; and the founder of the global music collective Silkroad.

His discography of more than 120 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners) ranges from iconic renditions of the Western classical canon to recordings that defy categorization, such as Hush with Bobby McFerrin and The Goat Rodeo Sessions with Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Recent releases include Six Evolutions, Mr. Ma’s third recording of Bach’s cello suites, and Songs of Comfort and Hope, created and recorded with pianist Kathryn Stott in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. His latest album—Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 4 and Op. 97, “Archduke”—is the third in a new series of Beethoven recordings with pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Leonidas Kavakos.

Mr. Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four, and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at The Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), National Medal of the Arts (2001), Presidential Medal of Freedom (2010), Kennedy Center Honors (2011), Polar Music Prize (2012), and Birgit Nilsson Prize (2022). He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.

Mr. Ma and his wife have two children. He plays three instruments: a 2003 instrument made by Moes & Moes, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice, and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.

At the age of five, I made friends with the upright piano in our living room. That was the beginning of my musical journey, one which continues as you read this. It would appear that my initial progress was rapid, and by the age of eight, I found myself at a boarding school for young musicians, the Yehudi Menuhin School. During my studies there, it’s now clear to me that I was heavily influenced by two occasional visitors to the school: Nadia Boulanger and Vlado Perlemuter. From them, my great passion for French music was ignited, and Fauré in particular has remained the musical love of my life.

Further studies at the Royal College of Music in London then led me very abruptly into the life of a professional musician via the Leeds International Piano Competition. It remains the steepest learning curve I’ve ever experienced. After a rollercoaster three years, I realized that I needed to reconnect with chamber music in a bid to feel more connected to other musicians, and after all, this had played an important part of my musical existence since childhood.

When—quite by chance—I met Yo-Yo Ma in 1978, it turned out to be one of the most fortuitous moments of my life. Since 1985, we have enjoyed a collaboration that has taken us to so many fascinating parts of the world and led to musical adventures with musicians who shared so much from their own traditions. I’ve always considered us to be intrepid musical explorers on our own individual paths but with an incredible bond that unites us on the creative highway.

Presently, I enjoy the challenge of creativity in a different way by bringing many musicians together once a year in my role as artistic director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music. My love of curating and directing began in 1995, and since then I’ve brought to life many of my ideas in events lasting anything from long weekends to two weeks. I continue to push my capacity for exploring music I know nothing about and love bringing together unusual combinations whenever possible.

There are too many highlights in my career to mention. Yes, it was a thrill to perform at the Last Night of the Proms to millions around the world, but equally a massive thrill to have lit up 20 small faces in an inner-city school while they jumped up and down to energetic piano music!

Working with young musicians is something I feel passionate about, and I presently teach at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo. I’ve also had some truly exciting music written for me and enjoyed a particularly close collaboration with composer Graham Fitkin. What an unbelievable privilege it is to be immersed in a language which has no boundaries and has allowed me to share musical stories on a global scale; that little upright piano set me on quite a path! Talking of paths: I’ve also been found trekking in Nepal, Costa Rica, and Bhutan, or walking my spaniel Archie on the Moors of Yorkshire. The journey continues.