UCSB Arts & Lectures will present a talk by world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma titled Culture, Understanding and Survival, 7:30 p.m. Saturday, April 27, at the Granada Theatre in Santa Barbara.
Drawing on his life as a musician and citizen, Ma will explore the role culture can play in helping people to imagine and build a better future. His talk will be followed by a Q&A.
“Culture — the way we express ourselves and understand each other — can bind us together as one world,” Ma has said.
Ma’s multifaceted career is testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding.
Whether performing new or familiar works from the cello repertoire, collaborating with communities and institutions to explore culture’s role in society or engaging unexpected musical forms, he strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.
Ma maintains a balance between engagements as a soloist with orchestras, recital and chamber music activities and collaborations with a wide circle of artists and institutions.
With partners from around the world and across disciplines, Ma creates programs that stretch the boundaries of genre and tradition to explore music-making as a means not only to share and express meaning, but also as a model for the cultural collaboration he considers essential to a strong society.
Expanding upon this belief, in 1998, Ma established Silkroad, a collective of artists from around the world who create music that engages their many traditions.
In addition to presenting performances in venues from Suntory Hall to the Hollywood Bowl, Silkroad collaborates with museums and universities to develop training programs for teachers, musicians and learners of all ages.
Silkroad has commissioned more than 100 new works from composers and arrangers worldwide and released seven albums, most recently a collection of music recorded for The Vietnam War, a documentary film from Ken Burns and Lynn Novick.
Through his work with Silkroad, and throughout his career, Ma seeks to expand the classical cello repertoire, frequently performing lesser-known music of the 20th century and commissions of new concertos and recital pieces.
He has premiered works by a diverse group of composers, among them Osvaldo Golijov, Leon Kirchner, Zhao Lin, Christopher Rouse, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Giovanni Sollima, Bright Sheng, Tan Dun and John Williams.
In addition to his work as a performing artist, Ma partners with communities and institutions from Chicago to Guangzhou to develop programs that champion culture’s power to transform lives and forge a more connected world.
Among his many roles, he is the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant; artistic director of the annual Youth Music Culture Guangdong festival; and UN Messenger of Peace.
He is the first artist ever appointed to the World Economic Forum’s board of trustees.
Ma’s discography of more than 100 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners) reflects his wide-ranging interests. In addition to his iconic renditions of the Western classical canon, he has made several recordings that defy categorization, among them:
“Appalachia Waltz” and “Appalachian Journey” with Mark O’Connor and Edgar Meyer, and two Grammy Award-winning tributes to the music of Brazil, “Obrigado Brazil” and “Obrigado Brazil: Live in Concert.”
Ma’s recent recordings include: “Songs from the Arc of Life,” with pianist Kathryn Stott; “Sing Me Home,” with the Silkroad Ensemble (2016 Grammy Award for Best World Music Album); “Bach Trios,” with Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile.
Also, “Brahms: The Piano Trios,” with Emanuel Ax and Leonidas Kavakos; and “Six Evolutions: Bach: Cello Suites.”
This year, Ma begins a new journey, setting out to perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s six suites for solo cello in one sitting in 36 locations around the world, iconic venues that encompass our cultural heritage, our current creativity and the challenges of peace and understanding that will shape our future.
Each concert will be an example of culture’s power to create moments of shared understanding, as well as an invitation to a larger conversation about culture, society and the themes that connect us all.
Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age 4 and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School.
After his conservatory training, he sought out a liberal arts education, graduating from Harvard University with a degree in anthropology in 1976.
He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize, Glenn Gould Prize, National Medal of the Arts, Dan David Prize, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Kennedy Center Honors, Polar Music Prize, and J. Paul Getty Medal Award.
He has performed for eight American presidents, most recently at the invitation of President Barack Obama on the occasion of the 56th Inaugural Ceremony.
Ma plays two instruments, a 1733 Montagnana cello from Venice and the 1712 Davidoff Stradivarius.
Tickets are $50-$125 for the general public; $25 for UCSB students with valid ID. (A Granada facility will be added to each ticket price.)
For tickets or more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures, 805-893-3535 or visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu or www.granadasb.org.
Also at the Granada, community members are invited to observe, at no cost, a Master Class with Yo-Yo Ma and UCSB Students, 10 am. Saturday, April 27; doors open at 9 a.m.
Yo-Yo Ma is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. Event sponsor: Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree. Media sponsors: KCLU 102.3 FM (88.3 FM Ventura) and Voice magazine. Wine sponsor: Palmina Wines.
— Caitlin O’Hara for UCSB Arts & Lectures.