You can learn more about Yo-Yo Ma at yo-yoma.com.
More information about the Kansas City Symphony and their upcoming performances and recordings at kcsymphony.org.
You can listen to archived Kansas City Symphony performances on 91.9 Classical KC Thursdays 8-10pm and Sundays 4-6pm.
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Sam Wisman: Yo-Yo Ma, thank you for joining us again on Classical KC.
Yo-Yo Ma: It's great to be with you, Sam.
SW: You're in town to perform with the Kansas City Symphony as Michael Stern’s time leading the group comes to an end. It’s your fourth time performing with the group under Michael’s leadership going back to 2007. As you reflect, what are your feelings about where the group has come from and where it is going?
YYM: I've known Michael since he was five years old, so I've known him for 59 years, which is kind of amazing, right? But what is great about having this kind of long arc is to see how someone from 5 to 64 has evolved as a human being and as a musician, as a music director.
He's not just a music director, but he's a community member. Because he cares so much about the kids and about families and about the quality of life of people from which the music emerges and how much he cares about the orchestra and how much he cares about each member, and the quality of lives of the musicians. It's about much more than music. It's about a quality of being. You know, he's a buddy. He's a friend, so we laugh a lot. We have a lot of fun.
SW: Working with young musicians is a core aspect of your career, including while here in KC. What would you say to a young person listening now that might think: ”Oh I’ll never be as good as Yo-Yo Ma, what’s even the point?”
YYM: Well, we look up to athletes. And in Kansas City, we have a lot of athletes that we can look up to. Right. But people don't grow up thinking that, “oh, I'm never going to be as good as this is.” I think we live in some funny illusion of something that, oh, if you do something, you can only be the best. Wait a minute. What happened to people living together and enjoying each other and living life as something that's full of wonder, and it's not being as good as, it's being in the state of wonder about something that we participated. Generally, you talked to people who were really, really good at something and they tell you: “the more I know, the less I know.”
It's like if you're good at something, then you're actually suddenly aware of all the things that you know absolutely nothing about, right? And that's what's driving. Part of it is like, you want to get good at something. But part of it is actually realizing that the world is vast and magnificent and is so much bigger than whatever we can be. And if you can be part of that, that's the most interesting thing, because I think what people want most is to feel really alive.
So if your goal is to say, I want to feel maximally alive, then you should try a lot of things and not necessarily be the best at anything, but to be good enough to really appreciate what goes into making something yourself. A table. Right. Or fixing a car or playing an instrument or throwing a ball. That's the enjoyment factor. So it helps not to compare yourself. But yet, we also are constantly, every time I open the paper, someone is comparing something to somebody else. And so what's that supposed to make us feel? We're being judged all the time within an inch of our life. As soon as we go to school. And then when you start work, you're being measured. You're being quantified. That doesn't help me feel more alive. So there's something else that's going on that we could focus on that can give us that quality of life.
SW: You’ve traveled the world, seeking the essence of the role that music plays for people within their natural surroundings. How vital is music to the physical and emotional wellbeing of not just an individual, but society as a whole?
Sound moves air molecules and air molecules touch the skin. So if you can't have another human being hold your hand, you have sound that actually touches it.Yo-Yo Ma
YYM: Well, one thing I realized from the pandemic that we just went through, I was wondering, well, what's my purpose as a musician? Like concerts, we can't gather together communally, but I could zoom in to patient rooms in hospitals or for frontline workers and, Emanuel Ax and I actually, he got hold of a flatbed truck and some kind of keyboard, and we went around town and played for different people in town. But zooming into patient rooms when they had to be isolated, I realized two things, that if you have an iPad and music is coming out, you can feel from the speaker the vibrations of sound. So sound moves air molecules and air molecules touch the skin. So if you can't have another human being hold your hand, you have sound that actually touches, it vibrates, right? Human touch is necessary for us to stay alive, and that's something that helps. But beyond that, what it does for me, you know, I think every music, every piece of music actually puts you in a slightly different state of mind.
So when you wake up in the morning, what music do you want to hear? When you come home at night after work, what music do you want to hear? If you're going on a date, what music do you want to hear? Because that music that you want to hear is the thing that we created that takes you into a certain state of mind. Right? That's its own medicine, right? It does the biochemical thing to your brain, but through something that is not a biochemical thing. It's something that we created through sound that can do that.
And every society has music to go with those very specific things. We do that for weddings. We do that for funerals. We do that for rites of passage, and we need music. Films without music, if you ever look at a movie without music, you realize there's a big factor missing, right? But again, we don't think about that most of the time because it's just there.
So I realized there are many ways for music to exist. The sound of nature is unbelievable. You go outside and you just listen, and suddenly everything comes alive.
SW: You’re in town premiering and recording a work by Joel Thompson called “Breathe, burn.” How meaningful is it for you to be a part of this project with Michael Stern and the Kansas City Symphony?
YYM: Well, Michael is one of the most thoughtful musicians that I know. He thinks so deeply about how to program music, and he went through many iterations, but he always wanted to do this Joel Thompson work because he fell in love with his music, and hence he recorded that. It is part of a larger recording of his music.
I think Michael makes sure that with his programing that he's connecting the moments that we are together to something else that is in life, in society. In this case, it's about some form of keeping the candle burning for people's voices and for each program. He's thought about what he can bring to a community that would help enrich the lives of the thinking, the inner lives of the people that are in a place that he loves so much, that's become his home.
