More on Yo-Yo Ma

I blogged a few months ago about Yo-Yo Ma and his appearance on The Colbert Report. Tonight, I watched on NBC Nightly News a nice profile of Yo-Yo Ma and Ma’s ten year involvement in The Silk Road Project. The segment shows an old black & white video clip of Ma at age seven, when he performed for President John Kennedy – a very precocious child prodigy just a bit taller than his cello.

While doing some more research on Ma, I came across this interview with Ma on All Things Considered on Christmas Eve, where Ma is held a contest on the Internet where you can collaborate with him by adding your own counter-melody or record an entirely new set of variations to Ma’s performance of “Dona Nobis Pacem (Give Us Peace)” and upload it to the web site.  The winner of the contest will get to meet and play his music in person with Yo-Yo Ma!

And if you hadn’t had enough of Yo-Yo Ma, on January 20th, he’ll be performing at Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration.

I’m always impressed when I hear Yo-Yo Ma speak. He’s always very well composed (no pun intended, honestly), eloquent, distinguished, charming and dare I say, handsome. People Magazine even once honored Ma as Sexiest Classical Musician! I don’t know if Ma reinforces the Asian American stereotype that we all play a classical stringed instrument well, but I can’t think of a finer musician to do so if he does.