Yo-Yo Ma

Yo-Yo Ma is an American cellist, born in Paris in 1955 to Chinese parents. He began to learn the cello with his father at the age of four and moved with his family to the United States three years later. He studied at the Juilliard School in New York and then took a liberal arts degree at Harvard. He has appeared as a soloist with orchestras around the world and has made a very large number of recordings, among them recordings of Bach’s cello suites and chamber music with the pianist Emanuel Ax, a frequent partner. His curiosity reaches well beyond the classical repertoire: he founded the Silkroad collective, which brings together musicians from many traditions, and he has recorded with artists such as Bobby McFerrin and the bluegrass players of the Goat Rodeo Sessions. His honours include the Avery Fisher Prize (1978), the National Medal of Arts (2001), the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Polar Music Prize (2012) and the Birgit Nilsson Prize (2022), and he is a United Nations Messenger of Peace.