The first thing I am going to post is of the Silk Road Ensemble. This is a project that I mentioned in one of my earlier blogs. Yo Yo Ma was the one who initiated this project with the goal of innovating traditional music and also promoting educational programs. Here is a link to learn more about the Silk Road Project. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road_Project.
This video shows the importance that Yo Yo Ma sees in education. He and the Silk Road Ensemble have taken a song that most of these kids know and they played it on their instruments. So here is Yo-Yo Ma and the "Empire State of Mind".
So I bet your next question is going to be "Did Bobby McFerrin and Yo-Yo Ma ever do 'Flight of the Bumblebee'" and the answer is most certainly yes!
Amazing, right? He also did a CD called "Appalachian Journey" with Edgar Myer (A bassist who I also love. Go look up "bass fun" on YouTube and you will get a sense of his personality) and Mark O'Connor (A violinist and composer).
And this next video, my friends, is how I came to want to play the cello. Who wouldn't after seeing Yo Yo Ma play Dvorak on Sesame Street?
So now that you have seen what my inspiration was to start playing the cello and to continue playing the cello for my career, I will show you a clip of who Yo Yo Ma's inspiration was.
So I think you get the point. Yo Yo Ma is a very talented musician who plays many different styles of music. Just to recap, we have seen The Silk Road Ensemble, Empire State of Mind, Flight of the Bumblebee with Bobby McFerrin, Appalachian Journey with Edgar Meyer and Mark O'Connor, and Sesame Street. And as we all know, he is a very good classical musician. I really like Yo Yo Ma a lot because in addition to being a great musician (who is humble), he is also a really positive, amazing person who really cares about people and kids.
I love Yo Yo Ma! I in fact remember seeing him on Sesame Street and his rendition of "Flight of the Bumblebee". It's great to see him reaching out to children and sharing the importance of world music. It's also a great idea that he gets the kids involved by doing a song their all familiar with. One of my favorite songs at the moment!
ReplyDeleteSo, I take it that you like Yo-Yo Ma? :-)
ReplyDeleteActually, I think he's absolutely wonderful, both as a cellist and with his work expanding our idea of what is "classical" music. I LOVE Appalachian Waltz. And since you have his duo with Bobby McFerrin, I assume you have "Hush?" If you like McFerrin, you might look up his album "Spontaneous Inventions"--no cello there, but it's really, really cool.