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Yo-Yo Ma will perform at NJPAC on Sunday.
One of the most celebrated classical musicians in the world, Yo-Yo Ma has recorded more than 75 albums, won numerous awards and broken cultural and musical barriers with his diverse repertoire.
Since his beginnings as a child prodigy, he has won over audiences and fellow musicians with his renditions of Bach, Brahms and Beethoven as well as works drawn from all over the world: traditional Chinese and Japanese music, jazz, bluegrass, film music and contemporary compositions.
So where would he like to go from here?
Ma, 55, offers this anecdote:
A cellist is walking on the beach, and he sees a bottle. He uncorks it and a 3,000-year-old genie comes out and offers to grant him two wishes. First he asks for world peace. Then he asks, “Can I play in tune?”
The genie responds: “What was your first wish again?”
Ma laughs humbly. As far as serious goals, he says he loves what he does and strives to continue to improve. Rather than chart his next move, though, he recognizes that many of his projects come from “accidental meetings with people,” which has meant “bumping into” the likes of Carlos Santana and Bobby McFerrin.
“It’s not a planned existence,” he says. “I welcome the accidental learning as much as I welcome the planned learning.”
At the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on Sunday, he will offer a cross section of his experiences. Accompanied by pianist Kathryn Stott, he will play cello standards like Schubert’s “Arpeggione” Sonata and Shostakovich’s Sonata in D Minor, op. 40; a transcription of César Franck’s Violin Sonata in A; and a few of his personal South American favorites including Astor Piazzolla’s “Le Grand Tango” and “Bodas de Prata & Quatro Canto” by Egberto Gismondi and Geraldo Carneiro. He repeats the program on Wednesday at Carnegie Hall.
While Piazzolla reigns as a master of tango music, Gismondi and Carneiro are lesser known. About five years before Ma and Stott released their 2003 “Obrigado Brazil” album together, they visited the country and met Gismondi, a pianist Ma likens to Keith Jarrett.
“Give him two hours, and he’ll take you into a different universe,” Ma says.
Gismondi composed a piece for the two of them that required both to improvise. Ma and Stott created their own version, which is now one of their regular performance pieces.
“After our Argentinian and Brazilian experiences, we can never play a program without including that part of the world,” he says.
While the program may appear eclectic, the choices are deliberate. As Ma points out, the cellists Mstislav Rostropovich and Pablo Casals, along with the historically important composition teacher Nadia Boulanger, are “sort of hovering in the background.”
Boulanger taught Piazzolla and Gismondi and encouraged them to write music that drew on their heritages, rather than perfect classical fugues. Like Ma, Rostropovich did much to expand his instrument’s repertoire, including premiering the work by Shostakovich. And Casals is linked to the Franck, which he is known for having played in its cello version.
But there is also a sentimental component to the concert.
“The Franck was a wedding present to (violinist and composer Eugene Ysaÿe),” Ma says. “The four movements are really like a musical narrative of a relationship, how it starts and ends up in the union of two people.
“What we hope to present is really a program that Kathy and I love,” he adds, “and in some ways it’s a story of our friendship, too, over 35 years.”
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