Yo-Yo Ma: Musician of the world

TAIPEI – An Evening of Latin American Music is about to begin at the National Concert Hall on the night of Oct. 28. The audience has settled into a hush, the kind where you wouldn’t be exaggerating when you say that you could hear a pin drop.

Just before Yo-Yo Ma, the world’s premier cellist – and, many believe, also the world’s most popular classical musician strides onstage – you get the sense that everyone here is just reining in their thrill, ready to intoxicate themselves with the Brazilian music they expect to be performed in characteristic Yo-Yo Ma fashion – entrancing, captivating, beautiful.

Tickets to this packed concert sponsored by Mercedes-Benz Daimler Chrysler Taiwan Ltd. are the hottest in town, and you certainly would consider yourself lucky if you were able to buy one. Especially so after you behold the thousands – there are no less than three thousand by my estimate – who have gathered outside the Concert Hall at the National Chiang Kai-Shek Cultural Plaza, patiently sitting on the ground or standing to follow the concert on a widescreen.

Fortunately for me, Philippine Airlines had generously flown me and Sony Music Phils. Marketing Manager Roslyn Reyes to Taipei, where Josephine Cheng, Director of International Marketing & New Media of Sony Music Entertainment (Taiwan) Ltd., has in turn provided us with tickets to An Evening of Latin American Music.

"Here in Taiwan," Josephine told us, "you have to plan way ahead to buy tickets to Yo-Yo Ma concerts."

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I wonder how a classically-trained cellist like Yo-Yo Ma – in a world where pop, rock and hiphop music dominate both the charts and the concert scene – could attract such a passionate crowd of what I noticed to be basically young people in their twenties to their forties. "Passionate" would be the only way to describe Yo-Yo Ma’s following, given how his fans had made a beeline for the concert, how cheerfully they applaud after each number, and how silent they remain as each piece is played.

Roslyn Reyes aptly observes, "It’s as if the audience doesn’t want to miss even a single note!"

Realizing just how engrossed everyone is in the music, I dare not cough during the numbers even if I have a bad cough at this time. Instead, I allow each lusty applause to drown out my coughing.

For who would want to ruin a much-anticipated Yo-Yo Ma concert in any way?

* * *

Watching Yo-Yo Ma’s onstage musical rapport with his fellow-musicians (also his co-performers in his latest Sony Music CD, Obrigado Brazil) – the preeminent guitar duo, Brazilians Sérgio and Odair Assad; one of the world’s most respected percussionists, Cyro Baptista; Grammy winner, composer and clarinet player Paquito D’ Rivera; one of Brazil’s best bass players, Nilson Matta ; bossa nova singer and guitarist Rosa Passos; and critically-acclaimed pianist Kathryn Stott – I recall how genuinely delighted the cellist had been during the previous day’s press conference at The Landis Hotel.

I thought it particularly revealing that during the presscon, Yo-Yo Ma did not speak nor dwell too much on himself. He instead spent most of the time introducing his fellow musicians, describing their specialties, praising each one’s talents profusely, and spicing his accounts with anecdotes about each of the artists.

"Rosa Pasos," he had gushed, "has the most beautiful voice I have heard!"

"Chinese modesty, American openness, French romance – Yo-Yo Ma is anything but a typical Chinese musician," Daimler Chrysler Taiwan Ltd. CEO Volker Harms had noted on the concert’s souvenir program. Those qualities were all on display at the presscon, where Yo-Yo Ma revealed himself to be a universal musician after explaining his love for Brazilian music.

"I’ve loved Brazilian music since I was a teenager listening to the radio," Yo-Yo Ma said. "Coming from a classical tradition, what’s not to love about a music that takes you to a special state of mind – to (both the) subconscious and conscious? It’s incredibly creative."

He then thanked his fellow-performers for being "warm and generous in sharing their traditions" and added that by celebrating other kinds of music like Brazil’s, "We hear more, we feel more, we can give more."

If there’s one thing that has distinguished Yo-Yo Ma throughout his career, it has been his willingness to break down musical barriers. Neither has he pigeon-holed himself in particular genres. He has successfully distilled the essence of the music of various cultures in a way that the rest of the world understands.

Or, as one writer put it, "Whether performing a new concerto, revising a familiar work from the cello repertoire, coming together with colleagues for chamber music or exploring cultures and musical forms outside of the Western classical tradition, Yo-Yo Ma strives to find connections that stimulate the imagination."

* * *

Yo-Yo Ma strides on stage for the opening number and the audience breaks into hearty applause. The Taiwanese have embraced the 48-year-old cellist as one of their own, for he was born to Chinese parents living in Paris where he gave his first public performance at age four. (Yo-Yo Ma had spent the rest of his growing-up years in New York. He was also educated in Liberal Arts at Harvard.)

As the first strains of his cello dominates the concert hall, I close my eyes and remember the hauntingly moving way Yo-Yo Ma had performed his cello solos in the Ang Lee film Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Replay those scenes where Zhang Ziyi and Chang Chen ride a horse across the desert, or where Zhang Ziyi plunges at film’s end off the mountain, and you can appreciate Yo-Yo Ma’s artistry even more.

I had also listened to Yo-Yo Ma on Obrigado Brazil before the concert, and I have to agree with those who have praised this CD of Brazilian music – it has samba and bossa nova as well as classical pieces, and two songs by the legendary Antonio Carlos Jobim – as everything from being an "elegant and eclectic collection" (Arizona Daily Star) to being "exquisite" (Diversion). Again, Yo-Yo Ma’s universal outlook and love of music shines through in Obrigado Brazil . It’s only downside, as the Minneapolis Star observed, is that "it makes you want to hear more."

* * *

The audience certainly wants more of Yo-Yo Ma tonight. It clamors for an encore which he and his co-musicians gamely oblige. The enthusiastic response reminds me of what Josephine Cheng had shared the previous day when she, too, had the pleasure of attending Yo-Yo Ma’s presscon.

"My mom used to play Yo-Yo Ma’s tapes," Josephine recounted of her childhood. "When you hear his music, he sticks with you."

Josephine had watched the cellist three or four times while she was a college student in the US. Watching him live, she said, "It’s so great to see someone who is passionate; his enthusiasm and joy spills over to you and you feel rejuvenated. When he plays, he becomes one with his cello and his music."

This exclusive Sony Classical artist’s wordwide audience apparently agrees, for not only has Yo-Yo Ma’s discography of over 50 albums included 14 Grammy award winners, he has also become the world’s bestselling classical recording artist. Yo-Yo Ma, who plays a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice and a 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius, has also perfomed solo as often as he has collaborated with musicians and performed with orchestras worldwide.

And just for a bit of trivia – did you know that in the year he won the National Medal of the Arts, Yo-Yo Ma was also voted one of the Sexiest Men Alive by People Magazine for 2001? If anything, this underscored the cellist’s commanding presence in popular culture, entrenching him far beyond the boundaries of the classical music world.

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As Yo-Yo Ma and his co-performers exit at last, I feel as if I have just experienced something new yet at the same time something so refreshingly familiar. Curiously, for all the high-brow reputation of the cello, Yo-Yo Mo has played the instrument in a way that I could appreciate. In one magical night, he has erased the distinction between "classical" and "popular" by offering not just great Brazilian music but simply, pure, great music.

Bless him because, like the universally-loved melodies of the traipsing of waters over rocks on a stream, or the sweet rhythms of a bird’s chirping, or the whistling of the breeze, Yo-Yo Ma’s artistry has struck a familiar (musical) chord in our collective (musical) hearts. His is a tune the whole world understands.

(E-mail reactions to annmondo@yahoo.com)