{"id":7837,"date":"2020-11-20T22:18:52","date_gmt":"2020-11-20T22:18:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/?p=7837"},"modified":"2020-12-16T22:21:22","modified_gmt":"2020-12-16T22:21:22","slug":"yo-yo-ma-and-the-meaning-of-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/yo-yo-ma-and-the-meaning-of-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Yo-Yo Ma and the Meaning of Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

From The New York Times Magazine<\/a><\/p>\n

By David Marchese<\/p>\n

The immensity of Yo-Yo Ma\u2019s talent is such that he would be globally admired if all he ever did was appear onstage or in a recording studio and then vanish after the last notes faded from his cello. That Ma has instead used his gifts in the service of spreading humanistic values \u2014 via cross-cultural musical collaboration, civic engagement and huge amounts of heart \u2014 means that his connection with the public goes far deeper than mere admiration. Ma\u2019s compelling instinct for compassion has been on much-needed display during this pandemic year. In the spring, he streamed a performance series, \u201cSongs of Comfort,\u201d on YouTube and social media. During the summer, he broadcast a performance of Bach\u2019s Cello Suites in honor of those lost to Covid-19. And on Dec. 11, he will release \u201cSongs of Comfort and Hope,\u201d an album recorded with the pianist Kathryn Stott. \u201cPeople need each other for support beyond the immediate staples of life,\u201d Ma says. \u201cThey need music.\u201d<\/p>\n

Do you think music is fundamentally good? <\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s a good question to ask and very hard to answer. It\u2019s as if you\u2019re asking me \u201cAre people fundamentally good?\u201d I don\u2019t think people are fundamentally bad<\/i>. But in the interaction of figuring things out or wanting more of something or less of something, then complex things come into play.<\/p>\n

I ask because your work is rooted in the idea of music as a value-positive, ennobling thing. But music is also used in every possible awful context. Can we delineate music from the intentions of the people using it? <\/b><\/p>\n

Music connects human beings. It brings people together. You can also describe it as energy: sound that moves air molecules. So a marching band will energize an athletic game or bring people to war. The bagpipe is used for war, for entertainment, for funerals, for weddings. Music is not one thing. It\u2019s something that people react to. But your question \u2014 \u201cIs that good or bad?\u201d \u2014 it depends on circumstances and individuals and timing. The invention of something starts out being more or less value-neutral. Agriculture: Nothing bad about it. But if you\u2019re able to grow a lot of vegetables and I can\u2019t grow any on my land, I might want to get some of your vegetables.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s something I\u2019ve been thinking about, particularly over the last four years, and I\u2019ll raise it with you fully aware that my engagement with music is minuscule compared with your own. <\/b><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t say that. I know you like music. You\u2019re interested. You think about it. So don\u2019t assume I know more than you.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll accept that! All right, I\u2019ve been wondering if in the past I had too easily allowed myself to believe that engaging with music \u2014 or culture more generally \u2014 was also a way of engaging with politics. In the sense that doing so was implicitly promoting humanistic values or empathy. Now I can\u2019t help thinking that was at least partly a complacent waste of time, and while I was doing that, some parallel Neanderthal was probably spending the equivalent time figuring out how to advance odious politics. Is my rambling making any sense to you? <\/b><\/p>\n

Of course it makes sense. It\u2019s about whether you believe in a utilitarian world or you believe that if you look out on the night sky, you see the infinitude of variety in nature and the unreachable wonders of what it is and how we fit in. Morons are generally not thinking about the infinitude of the universe. They\u2019re thinking of a different world. And you have to be able to extract certain truths. When you write something that\u2019s beautiful, you think you\u2019ve found a bit of truth. It flows. It sings. You can do that, David. Is that useful? I know the lady who spent 20 years helping to find the so-called God particle, the Higgs boson. Is that useful? I just read this piece that says that Newton, because of the bubonic plague, had to leave university and went back to the family farm, and during that time he developed all these incredible theories that we are the beneficiaries of hundreds of years later. Is that useful?<\/p>\n

Physics is useful. Is spending years overvaluing the political utility of art? <\/b><\/p>\n

All I\u2019m saying is, if you dropped out and just focused on politics, then where are you drawing from? Where are your inner resources? What\u2019s going to keep you going for 50 years? And do you know that you\u2019re actually going to make more of a difference by focusing on politics than on the culture you\u2019re passionate about? You don\u2019t know what you might help make happen. Our world is full of the result of unintended as well as intended consequences. The two naturally go together.<\/p>\n

What was your own evolution with music and politics?<\/b><\/p>\n

I think of it almost in terms of young children and how they engage in the world. Growing up is becoming familiar with a series of rolling concentric circles. You\u2019re kind of circling your space, your home, your family. You\u2019re exploring all around. So to your question, becoming a parent was a huge thing. Once you have a child, your sense of time completely changes. You start thinking about a longer stretch of time, where you have to be responsible for another person\u2019s life. You have to think differently about responsibilities. If you have a parent who becomes ill and you\u2019re there, that\u2019s a familial responsibility. A friend is in trouble; you help the friend. These are extensions of that concentric circle. New neighbors move in; you try to welcome them. It\u2019s all the connections we make in life. Once you\u2019re connected, you feel responsibility. And \u201cconnected\u201d means that it\u2019s a circular loop. I know you, but you have to know me, too. There\u2019s an energy circle that goes back and forth.<\/p>\n

And you believe culture can drive that? <\/b><\/p>\n

That\u2019s right. I knew fairly quickly in my career that you had to create memories. In order to have a career, you have to make sure that somebody remembers your name \u2014 as opposed to \u201cOh, that Asian dude who does the violin-type instrument.\u201d It\u2019s about connection. And culture \u2014 I used to ask people, \u201cWhat is culture?\u201d It\u2019s so complex. My latest try for \u201cculture\u201d is that it\u2019s everything that humans have invented that helped us survive and thrive. Think about language, think about agriculture, think about navigation, think about engineering. Think about politics: We invented our nation. And guess what? The people who invented our nation \u2014 they were younger than you. That\u2019s my vote for giving custodial responsibility to younger people sooner rather than later. They\u2019re willing to sacrifice certain things in order to have an authentic life in what they buy, whom they buy from, how they live. They\u2019re going to live through moments of change that I know I\u2019m not going to be capable of helping with, but I can be a cheerleader. That\u2019s one way of looking at responsibility. It\u2019s not about: \u201cOh, I have to care about society. I\u2019m using culture.\u201d It doesn\u2019t need to be defined as \u201cI\u2019m going to play for you this piece of music.\u201d It\u2019s not that. It\u2019s more like you and I talk, and a connection is activated. Because you\u2019re a thoughtful person, I\u2019m going to get something from this conversation that is going to help me build a mental structure: \u201cI met this guy, David, who\u2019s interested in a broad number of people and really does his homework and is a modest person, but he cares a lot and is curious.\u201d That\u2019s a good frame to remember somebody by. That\u2019s important.<\/p>\n

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

From The New York Times Magazine By David Marchese The immensity of Yo-Yo Ma\u2019s talent is such that he would be globally admired if all he ever did was appear onstage or in a recording studio and then vanish after the last notes faded from his cello. That Ma has instead used his gifts in … Continued<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2353,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[4208,3633,4195,4437],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7837"}],"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=7837"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7838,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7837\/revisions\/7838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media\/2353"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.opus3artists.com\/api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}