New Adventures in Good Music

Well it seems the conspiracy continues today to keep me away from the keyboard anyway.  I did manage to work in a good nap already so I am at least rested if not totally recovered from two weeks of non stop action.  So what have we got for today?  This week on  New Adventures in Good Music, we come home to America for a visit with the preeminent Cellist of our time, Yo Yo Ma.  

Born on this day in Paris in 1955, Yo Yo Ma is but 4 and a half years younger than me and I wish I looked half as good as he does at his age.  Anyway, good looks aside, Yo Yo has never left his classical roots, but has taken Classical Music down various exploratory paths in fusion with other genres to create unique blends of Beautiful Music.  

He spent his school years in New York City and was a child prodigy, performing from the age of five. He graduated from Juilliard School and Harvard University and has enjoyed a prolific career as both a soloist performing with orchestras around the world and a recording artist. His 90+ albums have received 18 Grammy Awards.

In addition to recordings of the standard classical repertoire, he has recorded a wide variety of folk music such as American bluegrass music, traditional Chinese melodies, the tangos of Argentinian composer Ástor Piazzolla, and Brazilian music.  He also collaborated with Grammy Award-winning jazz/reggae singer Bobby McFerrin. During the Dixie Chicks' controversial tour of 2005-6, Ma backed them playing cello as sideman, assisting in the string arrangements for the band.

Ma's primary performance instrument is a Montagnana cello built in 1733 valued at US$2.5 million.  He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2001,  Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, and the Polar Music Prize in 2012. 

In 1997, he was featured on John Williams' soundtrack to the Hollywood film Seven Years in Tibet. In 2000, he was heard on the soundtrack of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and, in 2003, on that of Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. He collaborated with Williams again on the original score for the 2005 film Memoirs of a Geisha. Ma has also worked with Italian composer Ennio Morricone and has recorded Morricone's compositions of the Dollars Trilogy including The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in America, The Mission, and The Untouchables. He also has over 90 albums, 18 of which are Grammy Award winners. Ma is a recipient of the International Center in New York's Award of Excellence.

Ma was named Peace Ambassador by then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan in January 2006.  He is a founding member of the influential Chinese-American Committee of 100, which addresses the concerns of Americans of Chinese heritage.

On November 3, 2009, President Obama appointed Ma to serve on the President's Committee on the Arts and Humanities.  His music was featured in the 2010 documentary Jews and Baseball: An American Love Story, narrated by Academy Award winner Dustin Hoffman.

In 2010, Ma was named Judson and Joyce Green Creative Consultant of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. In partnership with the orchestra's music director, Riccardo Muti, he launched the Citizen Musician initiative.

Ma currently plays with his own Silk Road Ensemble, which has the goal of bringing together musicians from diverse countries all of which are historically linked via the Silk Road. He records on the Sony Classical label. He also founded the Silk Road Connect, which involved children from middle schools such as JHS 185 in Queens, New York.

For today's Adventure, we join Yo Yo Ma and Friends on their Appalachan Journey.  Appalachian Journey is the second album from the string trio of bassist and composer Edgar Meyer, fiddler and composer Mark O'Connor, and cellist Yo-Yo Ma. James Taylor and Alison Krauss join the trio individually on two Stephen Foster songs arranged for the trio. Sony Classical released the disc in 2000. The album joined a number of other recordings released since Appalachia Waltz that continue a new kind of classical music tinged with and influenced by the sounds and structures of America's own musical traditions. It is possible that the titles of these albums imply a continuity of the American classical tradition begun by Aaron Copland in Appalachian Spring. Unlike their first album, the three virtuosos spent several months on the compositions and arrangements, from July 19 to September 10, 1999.

 

APPALACHIAN JOURNEY 1:42

Track listing
3:25 1- 1B" (Edgar Meyer)
7:38 2- "Misty Moonlight Waltz" (Mark O'Connor)
10:23 3-
15:42 5- "Indecision" (Meyer)
20:10 "Slumber my Darling" (Stephen Foster - arr:Meyer) 6- "Limerock" (Traditional - arr:O'Connor, Meyer)
26:08 7- "Benjamin" (Taylor)
28:39 8- "Fisher's Hornpipe" (Traditional - arr:O'Connor)
34:00 "Hard Times Come Again No More" (Stephen Foster - arr:James 34 Taylor, Yo-Yo Ma, Meyer, O'Connor)
39:07 9-
41:37 10- "Emily's Reel" (O'Connor - arr:Meyer)
48:20 11- "Cloverfoot Reel" (Meyer)
52:40 "Duet for Cello and Bass" (Meyer)
58:16 12- "Poem for Carlita" (O'Connor)
1:03:51 13- "Caprice for Three" (O'Connor) 14- "Second Time Around" (Meyer) 15- 16- "Vistas" (O'Connor)

 

The concert features Mark O'Connor, Violin; Yo-Yo Ma, Cello; Edgar Meyer, Bass; James Taylor, Vocals on "Hard Times Come Again No More", Guitar on "Benjamin" and Alison Krauss, Violin on "Fisher's Hornpipe" and vocals on "Slumber My Darling".  

 

As a companion piece over on my tumblr, I have Yo Yo Ma live in Japan with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra performing a more traditional Classical piece, Sir Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E Minor, Opus 85.  

Then as always on Wednesdays, it is Wet Wednesday and I have the half naked splash fest posted down below.  Over on my tumblr, Your Hottie of the Day!, Victor Gonzalez steams up the beach for us all!  Thanks for the visit, see you again soon.  Until next time as always, Enjoy!