This November, Yo-Yo Ma will perform Bach’s complete suites for solo cello for the first time in one evening at home, in Boston. It’s music that he has offered to communities on all six continents, in moments of joy and in times of tragedy. For him it exemplifies how culture helps us to seek truth, build trust, and act in service.
This is more than a concert for Yo-Yo: it is an invitation to listen to each other and the world around us, to celebrate our community and the ways in which people all over the world—and here in Massachusetts—are bringing us together, creating shared space for connection, reflection, and action, and imagining a better future.
Program
J.S. Bach | Suites 1-6 for unaccompanied cello, BWV 1007-1012
Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007
Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008
Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009
Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010
Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011
Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Cellist 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. Most recently, Yo-Yo began Our Common Nature, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. Our Common Nature follows the Bach Project, a 36-community, six-continent tour of J. S. Bach’s cello suites paired with local cultural programming. Both endeavors reflect Yo-Yo’s life long commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to understand how music helps us to imagine and build a stronger society. Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris, where he began studying the cello with his father at age four. When he was seven, he moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies before pursuing a liberal arts education. Yo-Yo has recorded more than 120 albums, is the winner of 19 Grammy Awards, and has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden’s inauguration. He has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of the Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Birgit Nilsson Prize. He has been a UN Messenger of Peace since 2006, and was recognized as one of TIME magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2020.
