Yo-Yo Ma Quotes

• There’s a part of me that’s always charging ahead. I’m the curious kid, always going to the edge.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• There are limits to how much sound a cello can make. That’s part of the framing of acoustical instruments. Finding what those limits might be, and then trying to suggest perhaps even the illusion of going beyond is part of that kind of effort.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• The thing that I’ve always been slightly frustrated with, was that the idea of a CD is kind of confined to a material possession that you can put on a shelf. And the idea of music, for me, is always about both the communication and the sharing of content. And so the interactive part is missing.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• One of the things I love about music is live performance.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• My teacher, my great cello teacher Leonard Rose, was such a great cellist, and nurturing man, very patient. But I grew up not only admiring him, but obviously Casals, Rostrotovich, Jacqueline du Pre, and many others, including many of my peers and contemporaries.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• I think there are so many ways to become interested in music. I believe signs of sustained interest gives a sense of the right time. Music, if thought of as a language, would perhaps indicate that as early as possible is not so bad. I do believe that a really nurturing first teacher that makes the child love something is crucial.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• I think of a piece of music as something that comes alive when it is being performed, and I feel that my role in the transmission of music is to be its best advocate at that moment.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• I really would like to be involved in things and to understand things, and in some ways you’ve got to be careful what you wish for because I feel very, very blessed to have such an interesting life and to be able to have little snapshots of lives of people from many different parts of the world.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody’s individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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• Music has always been transnational; people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Topics in Influence

  Tags in Absorbed, Classical, Music

• I love grocery shopping when I’m home. That’s what makes me feel totally normal. I love both the idea of home as in being with my family and friends, and also the idea of exploration. I think those two are probably my great interests.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Topics in Family, Love

  Tags in Exploration, Friends, Home, Idea

• I learn something not because I have to, but because I really want to. That’s the same view I have for performing. I’m performing because I really want to, not because I have to bring bread back home.

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  Tags in Bread

• Good things happen when you meet strangers.

  Yo-Yo Ma

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  Tags in Good Things, Things Happen, Strangers

• When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Preserve, Accept, Build

• Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there’s got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you’re at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Threaten, Leap, Forward

• I’m not likely to forget where I’ve been and what I’ve done and learned. I think it’s just as important to play new instruments as to play new pieces. The old ones are getting scarcer and the new ones more and more wonderful.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Scarcer, Learned, Forget

• After reaching 50, I began to wonder what the root of life is.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Root, Reaching

• One of the most interesting aspects of the film project was collaborating with so many people – directors, filmmakers, and writers – over a five-year period. I learned that there are two components to this.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Directors, Learned

• I’ve been traveling all over the world for 25 years, performing, talking to people, studying their cultures and musical instruments, and I always come away with more questions in my head than can be answered.

  Yo-Yo Ma

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Answered, Head

Yo-Yo Ma (27)

Birth:	7th October, 1955
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Cellist

About

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist and virtuoso. He has received multiple Grammy Awards, the National Medal of Arts in 2001 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011. Ma is one of the best-known cellists of the modern age.

Related Authors

• Julian Lloyd Webber
• Mstislav Rostropovich
• Pablo Casals
• Jacqueline du Pre
• Lori Singer
• Yo-Yo Ma

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Today's Anniversary - 21st December

Births

• 1974 - Karrie Webb
• 1925 - Paul Kurtz
• 1967 - Mikhail Saakashvili
• 1922 - Paul Winchell
• 1948 - Samuel L. Jackson

Deaths

• 2001 - David Swift
• 1935 - Kurt Tucholsky
• 1958 - Lion Feuchtwanger
• 1889 - Joseph Barber Lightfoot
• 1992 - Stella Adler