{"id":7263,"date":"2020-07-23T16:12:16","date_gmt":"2020-07-23T16:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=7263"},"modified":"2020-10-08T16:23:39","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T16:23:39","slug":"yo-yo-ma-discusses-music-growth-and-comfort-for-the-time-100-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/yo-yo-ma-discusses-music-growth-and-comfort-for-the-time-100-talks\/","title":{"rendered":"Yo-Yo Ma Discusses Music, Growth and Comfort for the Time 100 Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

TIME 100 TALKS<\/a><\/p>\n

‘Aren’t We Living the American Experiment?’ Yo-Yo Ma Discusses Music, Growth and Comfort<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Raisa Bruner<\/p>\n

Where do we turn when we need comfort? For Yo-Yo Ma, it\u2019s music. The world-famous cellist often brings his talents to the public in times of both crisis and celebration. When the coronavirus pandemic began to confine people to their homes this spring, he broke out his instrument to kick off a series of \u201cSongs of Comfort,\u201d shared over social media for all to enjoy.<\/p>\n

He was driven to help in this way because of the the \u201ctrifecta of crises\u201d that we\u2019re living through, he said during a TIME100 Talks appearance. \u201cIt makes one do some very very deep thinking, and this is the time to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

He broke it down as a weather metaphor: \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve just been through a blizzard,\u201d he said. \u201cNow the first blush, or the first trimester of this pandemic is past us, and now we\u2019re facing a very long winter.\u201d Ma continued: \u201cBecause we have time to think, we can actually think about the very long term. The very long term is the Ice Age. What kind of Ice Age is it going to be? Do we have a choice in how we want to live, how we want society to be as we go through this Ice Age?\u201d<\/p>\n

Ma has been asking big questions like this for years, on a mission to increase cross-border awareness and break down ethnocentricity: his global artistic collective Silkroad and his Bach Project have seen him travel the world and bring new talents and musical conversations to light. He also recognizes the importance of constant learning, especially now, when many industries\u2014including his own\u2014are reckoning with their histories of inequality.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most important thing is to listen and to start. Inaction is not a possibility,\u201d he said. \u201cAren\u2019t we living the American experiment? The United States is not a lockbox, to use an old Al Gore term\u2026 It\u2019s part of an experiment. We\u2019re constantly evolving that experiment in order to get to a more perfect union.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the pandemic\u2019s limitations on travel, Ma has been busy. In June, he released his second collaborative album with fellow musicians Stuart Duncan, Edgar Meyer and Chris Thile, Not Our First Goat Rodeo. It is an apt project for this moment, he noted, because of its eclectic roots.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s more and more acknowledgement that all of music is connected. That genres are not separate from one another. Music does break down ethnic identity,\u201d he said, explaining that the album\u2019s bluegrass sound nods to Scottish, Irish and African influence. \u201cAnd here\u2019s this great American music that is in fact a fusion, a successful fusion. Jazz is the same thing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Read more and watch the full interview.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TIME 100 TALKS ‘Aren’t We Living the American Experiment?’ Yo-Yo Ma Discusses Music, Growth and Comfort By Raisa Bruner Where do we turn when we need comfort? For Yo-Yo Ma, it\u2019s music. The world-famous cellist often brings his talents to the public in times of both crisis and celebration. When the coronavirus pandemic began to … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6767,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3633,5355,5928,4437],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7263"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7267,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7263\/revisions\/7267"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/6767"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}