American cellist Yo-Yo Ma still wants young musicians to help change lives after decade with Chicago Symphony Orchestra
- In his decade-long role as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s creative consultant, Ma used music to help improve society
- Although his tenure ended last June, he continues to encourage young musicians to consider how their music can make people’s lives better
What is an orchestral musician’s job?
Simply to play music? To show up in glamorous concert halls, give the best performances humanly possible, then pack up and go home? Or is it something more than that?
To cellist Yo-Yo Ma, what happens in gilded venues such as Orchestra Hall, home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra (CSO), is but one facet of what a classical musician can do. The rest occurs beyond the spotlight, when musicians venture out into neighbourhoods and try to change the world.
That is what Ma and young colleagues have done during his decade-long tenure as the Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s creative consultant, which ended last June. But his work in that role, most notably via multifaceted collaborations with the Civic Orchestra (the CSO’s training ensemble), will return to prominence on March 1, when he solos with the Civic in Dvorak’s Cello Concerto.
That concert will not only mark the centennial of the orchestra, which German conductor and composer Frederick Stock founded in the 1919-20 season, but will remind Chicagoans of how Ma has tried to influence a generation of young musicians.