This November, Yo-Yo Ma will perform Bach’s complete suites for solo cello for the first time in one evening at home, in Boston. It’s music that he has offered to communities on all six continents, in moments of joy and in times of tragedy. For him it exemplifies how culture helps us to seek truth, build trust, and act in service.
This is more than a concert for Yo-Yo: it is an invitation to listen to each other and the world around us, to celebrate our community and the ways in which people all over the world—and here in Massachusetts—are bringing us together, creating shared space for connection, reflection, and action, and imagining a better future.
Program
J.S. Bach | Suites 1-6 for unaccompanied cello, BWV 1007-1012
Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007
Suite No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1008
Suite No. 3 in C Major, BWV 1009
Suite No. 4 in E-flat Major, BWV 1010
Suite No. 5 in C minor, BWV 1011
Suite No. 6 in D Major, BWV 1012
Yo-Yo Ma’s career is testament to his faith in culture’s ability to generate trust and understanding — from his iconic performances and recordings to original undertakings such as the Bach Project and Our Common Nature, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. Yo-Yo was born to Chinese parents in Paris, where he began to study the cello with his father when he was four. Three years later, he moved with his family to the United States, where he continued his cello studies before pursuing a liberal arts education.
