Yo-Yo Ma Quotes

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Yo-Yo Ma

Profession : Musician

Birth : October 7, 1955

I love grocery shopping when I'm home. That's what makes me feel totally normal. I love both the idea of home as in being with my family and friends, and also the idea of exploration. I think those two are probably my great interests.

Yo-Yo Ma

Things can fall apart, or threaten to, for many reasons, and then there's got to be a leap of faith. Ultimately, when you're at the edge, you have to go forward or backward; if you go forward, you have to jump together.

Yo-Yo Ma

The tradition of classical music and the opera is such that it used to be the place where social intercourse could take place between all parts of society: politicians, industrialists, artists, citizens, etc. That tradition, I think, still exists, but it's much, much more diluted.

Yo-Yo Ma

Once something is memorable, it's living and you're using it. That to me is the foundation of a creative society.

Yo-Yo Ma

Good things happen when you meet strangers.

Yo-Yo Ma

I think there are so many ways to become interested in music. I believe signs of sustained interest gives a sense of the right time. Music, if thought of as a language, would perhaps indicate that as early as possible is not so bad. I do believe that a really nurturing first teacher that makes the child love something is crucial.

Yo-Yo Ma

My teacher, my great cello teacher Leonard Rose, was such a great cellist, and nurturing man, very patient. But I grew up not only admiring him, but obviously Casals, Rostrotovich, Jacqueline du Pre, and many others, including many of my peers and contemporaries.

Yo-Yo Ma

As you begin to realize that every different type of music, everybody's individual music, has its own rhythm, life, language and heritage, you realize how life changes, and you learn how to be more open and adaptive to what is around us.

Yo-Yo Ma

One of the things I love about music is live performance.

Yo-Yo Ma

Jazz has been such a force in music, that any musician, including classical composers, have been influenced, and obviously performers, also.

Yo-Yo Ma

The thing that I've always been slightly frustrated with, was that the idea of a CD is kind of confined to a material possession that you can put on a shelf. And the idea of music, for me, is always about both the communication and the sharing of content. And so the interactive part is missing.

Yo-Yo Ma

But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music.

Yo-Yo Ma

The tango is really a combination of many cultures, though it eventually became the national music of Argentina.

Yo-Yo Ma

Music has always been transnational; people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.

Yo-Yo Ma

When you learn something from people, or from a culture, you accept it as a gift, and it is your lifelong commitment to preserve it and build on it.

Yo-Yo Ma

Music is powered by ideas. If you don't have clarity of ideas, you're just communicating sheer sound.

Yo-Yo Ma

When we have a good balance between thinking and feeling... our actions and lives are always the richer for it.

Yo-Yo Ma

Passion is one great force that unleashes creativity, because if you're passionate about something, then you're more willing to take risks.

Yo-Yo Ma

I learn something not because I have to, but because I really want to. That's the same view I have for performing. I'm performing because I really want to, not because I have to bring bread back home.

Yo-Yo Ma

I think one of the great things about being a musician is that you never stop learning.

Yo-Yo Ma