Acclaimed Cellist Gives Plucky Talk Yo-Yo Ma Strikes Right Note During Lecture for 500 StudentsAkron Beacon Journal - November 9th, 2007 Arriving a little late to give a lecture- demonstration Thursday morning, world-renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma peeked his head playfully from behind his cello as he walked onto the E.J. Thomas Hall stage. ''You'll have to guess who it is,'' he teased. The middle school, high school and college students didn't need to be told. Many in this group of about 500 had heard the acclaimed American cellist perform in recital with pianist Kathryn Stott the night before. Now Tuesday Musical Association, the same presenter that had admitted about 550 students free to Wednesday's recital, had invited them back to hear Ma and Stott talk. Before the event started, Yohei Asada, a sophomore cellist at Hudson High School, said he had heard about Ma for a long time, from his parents and from listening to his CDs, like the one with Bobby McFerrin called Hush. Even students who don't study classical music had been talking about Wednesday's recital, he said. Ma, 52, started by telling a story about traveling with his cello next to him on an airplane and getting into a conversation with a man seated nearby. The man was intrigued to learn that Ma was a professional cellist. He asked if the performer had ever heard of Yo-Yo Ma. Why, yes that's me, Ma responded. The man turned out to be hard to convince, until Ma pulled out his driver's license. ''I always thought Yo-Yo Ma was a woman,'' the man admitted. The story set a bantering tone for the next 45 minutes, during which Ma and his recital partner played, talked and asked the audience questions. Ma and Stott began with a piece they had played as an encore the night before, George Gershwin's Prelude No. 1. ''Listen: ONE two three FOUR five six seven eight,'' Stott called out as she played, pointing out one set of syncopated rhythms that compete for attention in this jazzy piece. Polyrhythms are ''the African gift to North America,'' Ma said. After playing the dark, smoky lines of the Grand Tango by the Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, Ma asked the audience what they liked about the piece. ''It's suspenseful,'' answered a student. Since forming the Silk Road Project in 1998, Ma has visited many corners of the world. Traveling the trade routes between East and West has piqued his interest in how cultures exchanged not just goods but also music and ideas. When he listens to Piazzolla's tangos, it seems appropriate to him that they sound dangerous, Ma said. Piazzolla grew up during a politically unstable time when Argentinians were picked up off the street and ''disappeared,'' never to be seen again. Ma and Stott turned to the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich, showing how he used a repeated raindrop-like pattern in different guises to describe the military regime. No one living in the former Soviet Union needed an explanation for the music, said Ma. ''They knew this was a coded message.'' Afterward, cellist Yohei Asada's mother, Atsuko, said she appreciated Ma's insights as a way of following Shostakovich's music. ''Most people are intimidated by Shostakovich,'' she said. Many musical insights were there for the taking on Thursday. Yohei Asada said after the presentation that he admires Ma, and not only for his musicianship. ''He wants to unite the world through music,'' he said. Ma's enthusiasm appealed to Yohei and also to about 75 music students that Brian Keith Johnson, a professional singer and a teacher, had brought from Garfield High School. His students loved how Ma and Stott got physically into the music, Johnson said, and also how down-to-earth the musicians were. ''When kids can see musicians are having fun with each other, it makes it attainable for them,'' he said. Making sure all the options are open was the reason that Charles Myricks Jr. brought his children C.J., 7, and Krissy, 9, to the lecture-demonstration Thursday.
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