Yo-Yo Ma
Wednesday, September 20, 2023 – 7:30 pm at The Music Hall Historic Theater
The Great Bay Philharmonic is thrilled to welcome world-renowned cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, for a performance of Edward Elgar’s Cello Concerto!
Yo-Yo Ma’s multi-faceted career is testament to his belief in culture’s power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works for cello, bringing communities together to explore culture’s role in society, or engaging, unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity. His discography of more than 120 albums includes 19 Grammy Award winners and ranges from iconic renditions of the Western classical canon to recordings that defy categorization.
Edward Elgar’s poignant and touching Concerto, written immediately after the end of World War I speaks directly to our shared human experiences of loss and hope. The program also features Aaron Copland’s Fanfare for the Common Man, Viet Cuong’s Next Week’s Trees, and Ravel’s masterpiece, Le Tombeau de Couperin.
Tickets on sale now for Music Hall Members 5/17 – General Public 5/24
Click here for tickets
In a career spanning four decades, internationally revered cellist Yo-Yo Ma has dazzled the world as both a musician and a champion for culture’s impact on humanity. For one night only, he joins Great Bay Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Music Director David Upham, for an evening of transformative music.
Yo-Yo’s discography of more than 120 albums (including 19 Grammy Award winners), ranging from iconic renditions of the Western classical canon to recordings that defy categorization, such as “Hush” with Bobby McFerrin and the “Goat Rodeo Sessions” with Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer, and Chris Thile. Yo-Yo’s recent releases include Six Evolutions, his third recording of Bach’s cello suites, and Songs of Comfort and Hope, created and recorded with pianist Kathryn Stott in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yo-Yo’s latest album, Beethoven for Three: Symphony No. 6 and Op. 1, No. 3, is the second in a new series of Beethoven recordings with pianist Emanuel Ax and violinist Leonidas Kavakos.
Yo-Yo was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris. He began to study the cello with his father at age four and three years later moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies at the Juilliard School before pursuing a liberal arts education at Harvard. He has received numerous awards, including the Avery Fisher Prize, the National Medal of the Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, Kennedy Center Honors, the Polar Music Prize, and the Birgit Nilsson Prize. He has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration.