Turning 60

Yo-Yo Ma shines a spotlight on his life with a coming-of-age album

In the summer of 1978, when Kathryn Stott, a student of classical piano at London's Royal College of Music, returned to her apartment after a holiday, she found a young Asian man practicing the cello inside the pad she shared with violinist Nigel Kennedy. The stranger's wife was there too.

"It seems Nigel had sublet the apartment," Stott, a British classical pianist, recalls of the six weeks she spent in the apartment with Chinese-American cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Jill Hornor, his wife.

Stott's meeting with Ma led to future collaborations in music and a lifelong friendship.

In his latest album, Songs from the Arc of Life, which was released on Sept 18, Ma has Stott playing a few of the songs.

With 19 classical music pieces, including Lullaby by Johannes Brahms, Ave Maria by Johann Sebastian Bach and Charles Gounod, and Romance for Cello and Piano by Frederick Delius, the album, Ma says, "is an invitation to our audience to remember, to imagine what the soundtracks of their lives might be".

"Kathy and I have talked for years about making an album of pieces of music we absolutely love. But we hadn't found the right format to put in," says Ma in a phone interview with China Daily from his home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he lives with Hornor, who teaches German literature at Harvard University, and their two children, Nicholas and Emily.

"The concept is 'Let's take an example of life'. We've pulled together an array of fabulous composers and music that we think could be an exemplar of a whole life. It doesn't necessarily have to be your life or my life. But it's somebody's life. It's stages that everybody goes through, and not necessarily in a particular order," he says.

"The album is also a celebration of our 30-year musical partnership," Stott says in an e-mail interview with the newspaper.

Stott and Ma have toured and recorded together since 1985, including playing for Ma's albums Soul of the Tango and Obrigado Brazil, which won Grammy Awards in 1999 and 2004 respectively.

"We continue to inspire each other because we have space in our musical lives to do other things. We also live in very different countries, UK and USA, and lead quite different lives. All those aspects contribute to keeping our musical life fresh," she says.

"What I've always found with Yo-Yo is that he can endlessly re-create music - the story he wants to share-and that is something quite unique."

For Ma, who has released over 90 albums and has received 18 Grammy Awards, his latest album is also a gift to himself on turning 60 on Wednesday.

Born in Paris to Chinese parents, who were also musicians, Ma values his ancestry. In Chinese tradition, the age of 60 is considered a milestone in one's life.

"I think that's actually really interesting because it makes me think what my 60s would be like, but also what's happened before," Ma says.

Ma's life until now has been a continuous search for cultural links to music. From American bluegrass, the tangos of Argentina to soundtracks of movies such as Memoirs of a Geisha and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, he has done it all. Ma has also worked with artists from several fields, including Kabuki (traditional Japanese dance drama) and modern dance.

One of his most well-known initiatives is called the Silk Road Project that he founded in 1998, with the aim of bringing musicians from different countries along the ancient trade routes together for different musical programs.

Ma attributes his interests in exploring cultures to his parents and his past experiences.

As a child prodigy, Ma learned the cello at age 4, before moving to New York when he was a year older. Trained at Juilliard School and Harvard, Ma also had interests in politics and philosophy.

"The knowledge and experiences allowed me to look at the world in new ways," he says.

Ma wrote on his Facebook page on 9/11: "I have played Bach at weddings and at memorial services, and I've often wondered how it could be appropriate at both. How could joy and sorrow fit so well together? It's because music has the capacity to be infinitely empathetic to the human condition."

chennan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 10/09/2015 page26)