A United Nations Messenger of Peace, Ma has also become a humanitarian icon and champion for the power of music in healing. With 18 Grammy Awards under his belt, Ma is arguably the world’s most celebrated classical cellist and has recorded music from American bluegrass to traditional Chinese melodies. “A seven-year-old Chinese cellist, playing old French music, for his new American compatriots.Īnd so, a cultural icon was born. “Now, here’s a cultural image for you to ponder as you listen,” Bernstein continues. Leonard Bernstein introduces seven-year-old Yo-Yo Ma. Read more: Beloved cellist Yo-Yo Ma gives impromptu concert at COVID-19 vaccine clinic And this, it appears, was the first time Ma was seen on television after cellist Pablo Casals – who was also on the bill that night – brought the young star to the organisers’ attention. Two years later, Ma and his family moved to the United States.

From the age of five, he was already performing before audiences in France. Ma took up the violin, piano and viola from very young, but settled on cello aged four. “And in this great tradition, there has come to us, this year, a young man aged seven, bearing the name Yo-Yo Ma,” Bernstein continues.īorn in Paris, Ma was bathed in music from a young age – his mother, Marina Lu, a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, a violinist and professor of music at Nanjing National Central University.

Actors that are child music prodigy