Yo-Yo Ma: Earth's Most Charming Male? | Asian American Issues

alling Yo-Yo Ma the world's greatest living cellist is like calling Monica Lewinsky Bill Clinton's favorite intern. Some dimensions don't reduce down to adjectives. But if you were an alien tasked to bring home earth's most charming male, Yo-Yo Ma would head up your short list. And if you were a promoter trying to come up with a surefire class note for a mass media spectacle like the Olympics or the Oscars Yo-Yo Ma would be your man.

     Ma's status transcends his 14 Grammies and over 50 albums during a professional career that began at age five. He isn't so much a musical icon or even a cultural icon as the very icon of culture itself. It may have something to do with the rapturous way he bows his 300-year-old Montagnana cello, as though channeling the spirits of Bach, Brahms or Beethoven. Or the fact that he has high society feeding ravenously out of his long-fingered hands. Or the infectious delight with which he feeds it cultural confections that meld Bach cello suites with Kabuki, ice-dancing or garden design. Or his ability to move, within the space of a single year, among albums featuring Appalachian fiddling, Tango and Baroque.

     And what Asian American hasn't noted Ma's collaboration with composer Tan Dun on the haunting score for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon as well as his ambitious Silk Road Project to recreate musically the cultural movements along the old trading route between Europe and Asia?

     It doesn't hurt either that at 46 Yo-Yo Ma has the looks and the energy of a man half his age. And is it possible that, despite all his success, he still wears what looks like the same oversized glasses he wore twenty years ago?

     The worst epithet he's ever faced is being tagged "Sexiest Classicial Musician" by People.

     Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 in Paris to a singer mother and a musicologist father who set about with great determination to create a cello prodigy. At age six Yo-Yo showed enough promise to raise the eyebrows of violinist Isaac Stern. The following year the Ma family relocated to New York. At age nine Yo-Yo was enrolled in the Julliard School and studied under cellist Leonard Rose, a close friend of Stern's. For college he chose to receive a broad liberal arts education at Harvard instead of attending a music school. He graduated in 1976. A year later he married Jill Hornor, a violinist he had met during a performance at Mt Holyoke when he was 16. She was two years older. By the time he won the Avery Fisher Prize in 1978 Ma was a dozen years into his career as an internationally acclaimed cellist. He continues to perform regularly to packed houses around the world and is one of the world's leading classical recording artists. The Mas live in Cambridge, Massachusetts with their two children, Nicolas, 18, and Emily, 16.

     Is Yo-Yo Ma the world's most charming man? Or the most annoying? Or both?

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WHAT YOU SAY

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Indy,

"The crux of this matter may lie in that although Asian parents may choose to send their children to piano lessons, no White, Black or Latin parent chooses to send their children to Di-Zi or Pipa (Chinese flute or lute) lessons"

That is correct there cultural bias for learning the piano instrument is undeniable the world over. However, in a subjective field as music, which is a pyschological aquired taste, the bias is basically ungrounded. That is the first part of the problem, which is basically outside of Mr. Ma controls, it is a societal issue.

The second part of the problem, is within Mr. Ma control. As a leader in his field he can choose whether or not and to what extent he wishes his following to be exposed to Classical Eastern Music, through his own products. It is obvious he has already choosen to lend his name in exposing some Classical Eastern Music. However, the contention I have is to what extent Mr. Ma has choosen to excercise his musical leadership in introducing Classical Eastern Music to the masses.

Rolling My eyes,

I use the term "selling out," in the sense of having a preferrance for an ungrounded cultural bias. Without more background information on the examples you provided I could not qualify them individually. However, they could be qualified as "Selling out" if the conditions are right. Remember sometimes "selling out" is not a deteriment and is praised by the masses.
AC Dropout
Tuesday, March 19, 2002 at 08:22:29 (PST)

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AC Dropout

While I value your opinion, I disagree. Classical music is beautiful. It's moving and majestic. The fact that it has western origins makes no difference, and neither should it to people who choose to pursue it. We are living in a time of cultural globalization. Why should we then classify something as "Western" and then stereotyope every Asian as a 'sellout' for choosing to learn a "Western" instrument over an eastern one? If you do so, don't you think you are distinguishing between cultures and restricting others to remain within those cultural boundaries? Isn't that rather narrow-minded?

Perhaps the parents chose Classical Western music because it is more easily accessible in a Western country such as America, or where I live which is Australia. Certainly in China, there are still many children who are taught the classical chinese instruments, because there the instruments, teachers and music in itself is more common.

I play the piano myself, and no, my parents didn't ship me of to music lessons when I was a toddler. I choose the instrument myself for my sixth birthday. At the age of six, I was unable to comprehend the idea of 'selling-out' and 'western superiority'. I merely choose an instrument I liked. My parents respected that descision. They both appreciate both Classical (Western) and Traditional Chinese music, and didn't persuade me to choose between them.

I think it is ideal and nothing to be scorned if Asian people are proud of their culture and appreciate the music of other cultures too.

The crux of this matter may lie in that although Asian parents may choose to send their children to piano lessons, no White, Black or Latin parent chooses to send their children to Di-Zi or Pipa (Chinese flute or lute) lessons. But that is only their loss.
Indy
Monday, March 18, 2002 at 16:35:22 (PST)

Ac Dropout,
When Asian people play the so-called "Western" instruments such as the violin or the piano, I really don't think that one day they decided to wake up and think, OH MY GOSH...I've decided to be a sell-out today and pick up a WESTERN instrument to play instead of a Chinese one! So, I will go and learn the piano! People all over the world play the piano, the violin, the cello, etc., etc. So, if a Caucasian person or whatever non-Asian person decides to learn a Chinese instrument he is actually selling out of his own culture then? I highly doubt that. I think it's time to move on to something more PRODUCTIVE to talk about rather than some trivial matter about what instrument Yo-yo Ma should have started out playing when he was still a kid.
Rolling My eyes
Monday, March 18, 2002 at 11:03:28 (PST)

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