Yo-Yo Ma Always Brings World of Ideas Cellist will Play Latin Music with Classical at E.J. Thomas

Akron Beacon Journal - November 4th, 2007

by Elaine Gureglan

Precisely at the time Yo-Yo Ma is scheduled to call for an interview, the phone rings. It's his publicist. He's running five or 10 minutes late. Is that OK? Can he call you then? She asks this with the nervous tension of the truly conscientious. Sure, no problem. Barely two minutes later, the phone rings again. It's the world-famous cellist, back on track, relaxed and talkative despite his unyielding schedule. Now, you can't really hold it against people who are jet-lagged or due onstage to perform in a few hours if they can't always deliver fresh observations or pithy thoughts within a 20-minute time slot. But this 52-year-old celebrity is game for the routine; in fact, he doesn't seem to see it as a burden. Ma wears his fame as a cloak to pull people closer, rather than as armor to keep them away. And every musically inclined person in Akron seems to be interested in getting closer at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, when Ma will give a solo cello recital at E.J. Thomas Hall, presented by Akron's Tuesday Musical Association. The presenter's executive director, Barbara Feld, has the welcome problem of figuring out how to fit in everyone who wants to hear him, because the concert is nearly sold out. Standing room is outlawed by fire safety laws because there are no aisles at E.J. Thomas Hall. Ma visited Akron most recently in 2004 for a concert with his Silk Road Ensemble. This time, he'll play a classical recital with his frequent collaborator, pianist Kathryn Stott. The nontraditional program does include classical pieces, but mixes them with an Argentine tango and Brazilian songs arranged for Ma and Stott by the composer, Egberto Gismonti. The musical stew reflects Ma's consuming interest in traveling the world through music. Almost 10 years ago, Ma formed the Silk Road Project to follow the ancient trade routes linking Europe and the East and explore the musical traditions along the way. The project just keeps growing, with performances, commissions of new pieces and recordings. Over the course of a season that ended last summer, a collaboration of the Silk Road Project, the Art Institute of Chicago and the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs reached an estimated 100,000 people. The Chicago Symphony was one of 70 institutions that participated. In a project of that magnitude, Ma said, you want to think hard: ''What is the value of what we are leaving behind? Is it improving relationships? Are the relationships continuing between the institutions?'' That's one reason for the recent CD Silk Road Journeys: New Impossibilities, made with the Silk Road Ensemble and the Chicago Symphony. When Ma does a lecture-demonstration at 11 a.m. Thursday at E.J. Thomas Hall, he'll also be thinking about what he can leave of lasting impact, he said. He welcomes the chance to meet with a group of 500 or so middle school, high school and college students and ''just start a conversation,'' as he puts it. ''Going someplace, then really landing and finding out who people really are is the point of displacement,'' Ma said. ''You go somewhere and you don't just want to be in a cocoon.'' With more than 15 Grammy Awards to his credit, it's clear that his life has been anything but insular. An American whose Chinese parents were living in Paris when he was born, Ma studied cello with Leonard Rose at the Juilliard School and earned a degree from Harvard University. In between all the traveling, which this year includes solo, chamber, symphony and Silk Road appearances around the world, Ma and his wife call Boston home. If there is anyone at home in the world, it is Ma. With his Silk Road colleagues, he said, ''we have a common dream where you can get in the car anyplace in Western Europe and drive all the way through to the Middle East and Central Asia and get to the Pacific. If that happened, it would mean that a lot of things would be in place. ''It would mean the world is in a fairly good state. It's safe, you can get gas and food and sleep someplace along the way. Then it's not so much what kind of government you have, but actually that people have enough respect and tolerance for one another that people can go through and it's OK.'' That said, it's on to the next interview. The way ideas tumble out from Yo-Yo Ma, I'm sure he'll have something entirely new to say.