
Sound
Yo-Yo Ma
Born 1955-10-07 · Paris, France
Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist. Born to Chinese parents in Paris, he was regarded as a child prodigy, and began to study the cello with his father at age four. At the age of seven, Ma moved with his family to Boston and later to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard University. He has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world, recorded more than 92 albums, and received 19 Grammy Awards. In addition to recordings of the standard classical repertoire, Ma has recorded a wide variety of folk music, such as American bluegrass music, traditional Chinese melodies, the tangos of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, and Brazilian music. He has also collaborated with artists from a diverse range of genres, including Bobby McFerrin, Carlos Santana, Chris Botti, Diana Krall, James Taylor, Miley Cyrus, Zakir Hussain, and Sting. Ma has been a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2006. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize in 1978, The Glenn Gould Prize in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, Kennedy Center Honors in 2011, the Polar Music Prize in 2012, and the Birgit Nilsson Prize in 2022. He was named as one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2020. Ma's primary performance instrument is the Davidov cello, made in 1712 by Antonio Stradivari. Ma's mother, Marina Lu, was a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a violinist, composer and professor of music at Nanjing National Central University (now relocated in Taoyuan, Taiwan; predecessor of the present-day Nanjing University and Southeast University). They both migrated from the Republic of China to France during the Chinese Civil War. Ma's sister, Yeou-Cheng, played the violin and piano professionally before obtaining a medical degree from Harvard Medical School and becoming a pediatrician. The family moved to Boston when Ma was seven. ... Source: Article "Yo-Yo Ma" from Wikipedia in English, licensed under CC-BY-SA.
Acting credits
7.0World-famous detective Benoit Blanc heads to Greece to peel back the layers of a mystery surrounding a tech billionaire and his eclectic crew of friends.
Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery
2022
8.0His unforgettable scores are an essential part of some of the most beloved movies of our time, over a career that spans decades. See and hear maestro John Williams' own story, with insights from filmmakers, musicians, and others he has inspired, complete with rare behind-the-scenes looks at the making of movie history.
Music by John Williams
2024
6.0An elegiac documentary following virtuosic clarinettist and composer Kinan Azmeh, a Damascus-born musician living in exile, as he attempts to find meaning and purpose after the outbreak of war in Syria. A profound exploration of the role art can play in forging identity and community.
Half Moon
2025
8.0For more than thirty years, and through his television program, Fred Rogers (1928-2003), host, producer, writer and pianist, accompanied by his puppets and his many friends, spoke directly to young children about some of life's most important issues.
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
2018
10.0In honor of Leonard Bernstein’s 100th birthday, Tanglewood—the famed summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra—dedicated its entire 2018 season to the iconic composer, conductor, performer, educator and humanitarian. The festivities culminated on Bernstein’s centennial birthday on August 25, 2018, in a special celebrity-studded gala concert. Directed for the stage by James Darrah, The Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood illuminates the breadth of Bernstein’s incredible life and career, which inspired generations of music lovers around the globe – from his talent as a composer to his generosity in mentoring other composers and musicians, his inimitable role as a driving musical force at Tanglewood for over 50 years and more.
Leonard Bernstein Centennial Celebration at Tanglewood
2018
6.0In recognition of the 4th of July, several celebrities and politicians of differing ideologies join to read the historic documents which laid the foundation for the United States of America.
The Words That Built America
2017
7.8Join host Michael Keaton to celebrate "Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood," the pioneering children's series that premiered nationally 50 years ago. Celebrities, cast members and Joanne Rogers reveal their favorite memories from the series.
Mister Rogers: It's You I Like
2018
8.5This intimate portrait of the legendary conductor Seiji Ozawa focuses on the Japanese master and teacher's career, his advocacy of modern composers and the behind-the-scenes world of the symphony orchestra.
Ozawa
1985
A legendary 1990 all-star concert celebrating the 150th anniversary of the composer Tchaikovsky's birth.
Tchaikovsky: 150th Birthday Gala from Leningrad
1990
9.0The Music Garden is an exploration of music as interpreted through gardening on a grand scale. The film follows the efforts of Yo-Yo Ma and landscape designer Julie Moir Messervy to create a formal garden, based on J. S. Bach's 'Suite No. 1 for Unaccompanied Cello', in the center of Boston. Woven throughout this unusual enterprise is a performance of the suite by Yo-Yo Ma, accompanied by special effects that bring the dream of the garden to life.
Bach Cello Suite #1: The Music Garden
1997
NRNo synopsis available yet.
Notre-Dame de Paris : La Réouverture - La Grande Soirée
2024
NRTanglewood is one of the world's most beloved music festivals and serves as the summer home for the famed Boston Symphony Orchestra. In a star-studded event featuring some of its most distinguished and long-term contributors, the prestigious Tanglewood Festival celebrated its 75th anniversary with an evening of sparkling music that will long be remembered.
Tanglewood 75th Anniversary Celebration
2013
5.0Chart-topping jazz trumpeter Chris Botti and special guests performed two star-studded concerts at the historic Boston Symphony Hall with Keith Lockhart and the Boston Pops on September 18 and 19, 2008. Special guests include Josh Groban, Yo-Yo Me, John Mayer, Katharine McPhee, Lucia Micarelli, Sting and Steven Tyler.
Chris Botti in Boston
2009
NRDavid Blum, the internationally respected musician and writer, produced this film as he neared death from cancer. Blum believed that his inner discoveries and experience could help others realize their own spiritual strengths in a time of crisis.
Appointment With The Wise Old Dog
1998
6.5The film explores the relationships that a limousine driver, a doctor, and a real estate agent have amongst each other and with Yo-Yo Ma as he travels to Canada to perform Bach's Cello Suites.
Sarabande
1997
8.0THE SOUND OF THE CARCERI explores the deep relationship between music and architecture through a high-tech 'virtual confrontation' between Bach and his contemporary, the architect Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Using a striking visual style, director Francois Girard ('The Red Violin' and 'Thirty-Two Short Films about Glenn Gould') places Yo-Yo Ma within a series of computer-generated, three-dimensional recreations of Piranesi's well-known prison etchings. Through Yo-Yo Ma's and music producer Steven Epstein's struggle to recreate and interact with the imaginary space that Ma performs in, the film examines the complexity of illusion, of representation and reality.
Bach Cello Suite #2: The Sound of the Carceri
1997
The music is not Beethoven's most familiar, but it is absolutely charming. The concerto is appealing in its melodic material and the intricate interactions among the soloists and orchestra. The Choral Fantasy features a long piano solo that Beethoven wrote for himself, plus a choral melody that sounds like a preliminary sketch for the last movement of his Ninth Symphony. Both works pose unusual balance challenges, to which Barenboim and the recording engineers rise impressively.
Beethoven - Choral Fantasy and Triple Concerto for Violin, Cello & Piano
2003
3.8Live performance from a group of celebrated string musicians, comprising cellist Yo-Yo Ma, fiddler Stuart Duncan, bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolist Chris Thile. The group, which came together to record the 2011 collaborative album 'The Goat Rodeo Sessions', is joined on stage by guest vocalist Aoife O'Donovan. The performance took place at the House of Blues in Boston in January 2012 and saw the talented musicians perform an eclectic setlist of material.
The Goat Rodeo Sessions Live
2012
NRDaniel Barenboim conducts the Berliner Philharmoniker in performances of Beethoven's 'Triple Concerto' and 'Choral Fantasy'. Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma are joined by Carola Höhn, Katherina Kammerloher, Andrea Bönig and Endrick Wottrich, amongst others.
Beethoven: Triple Concerto And Choral Fantasy
1995
NRCellist Yo-Yo Ma has the Royal Albert Hall stage to himself for this Late Night Prom as he takes on the challenge of J. S. Bach’s Six Cello Suites.
Yo Yo Ma: The Bach Project– Six Cello Suites
2015
Master Kabuki actor Tamasaburo Bando sets out on a journey to discover, through traditional Japanese dance, the universality and emotion of Bach's Fifth Suite. The result is this revelatory, cross-cultural and trans-oceanic collaboration with Yo-Yo Ma, sensitively documented by filmmaker Niv Fichman.
Struggle for Hope
1997
6.9Follow several talented members of the ensemble as they gather in locations across the world, exploring the ways art can both preserve traditions and shape cultural evolution.
The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble
2016
Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone DVD
Yo-Yo Ma Plays Ennio Morricone
2004
Renowned cello virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma embarks on an intense year long collaboration with choreographer Mark Morris, which culminates in a spectacular performance.
Falling Down Stairs
1997