Music Worcester Presents An Evening With Yo-Yo Ma This January

Music Worcester, in the midst of its 166th season of sharing world class performing arts with audiences in Central Massachusetts, will present An Evening with Yo-Yo Ma: Reflections in Words and Music, on Friday January 10, 2025, at historic Mechanics Hall in Worcester.  Tickets and information about this Arthur M. & Martha R. Pappas Foundation Concert, and all shows at Music Worcester are available at musicworcester.org.

This special event with Yo-Yo Ma pairs repertoire from the center of his musical firmament with reflections on how it has shaped his thinking about art, human nature, and our search for meaning. Together, the cellist's music and words ask us to consider what music is for, and how it can guide us on a path towards hope. 

“We are so happy to welcome Yo-Yo Ma back to Worcester for his first public visit since 2019,” said Adrien Finlay, Music Worcester's Executive Director.  “Not only an extraordinary musician, he remains one of the great cultural ambassadors worldwide. This makes it so appropriate that this event will be this season's Annual Arthur M. & Martha R. Pappas Foundation concert, celebrating Martha and the late  Arthur's legacy as being among the most generous philanthropists in Central Massachusetts.”

Yo-Yo Ma's multi-faceted career is testament to his belief in culture's power to generate trust and understanding. Whether performing new or familiar works for cello, bringing communities together to explore culture's role in society, or engaging unexpected musical forms, Yo-Yo strives to foster connections that stimulate the imagination and reinforce our humanity.

Most recently, Yo-Yo began Our Common Nature, a cultural journey to celebrate the ways that nature can reunite us in pursuit of a shared future. Our Common Nature follows the Bach Project, a 36-community, six-continent tour of J. S. Bach's cello suites paired with local cultural programming. Both endeavors reflect Yo-Yo's lifelong commitment to stretching the boundaries of genre and tradition to understand how music helps us to imagine and build a stronger society.

Yo-Yo Ma was born in 1955 to Chinese parents living in Paris, where he began studying the cello with his father at age four. When he was seven, he moved with his family to New York City, where he continued his cello studies before pursuing a liberal arts education.

Yo-Yo has recorded more than 120 albums, is the winner of 19 Grammy Awards, and has performed for nine American presidents, most recently on the occasion of President Biden's inauguration. He has received numerous awards, including the National Medal of the Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, and the Birgit Nilsson Prize. He has been a UN Messenger of Peace since 2006 and was recognized as one of TIME magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2020.

About Music Worcester

Music Worcester, Inc., originally known as the Worcester County Music Association, for years ran the Worcester Music Festival. Current programs reflect the merger in the mid-1990s of the Festival with the International Artists Series and the MA Jazz Festival. Great performances by world-renowned orchestras and guest soloists, chamber music, ballet, world music and dance, jazz and choral masterworks are hallmarks of Music Worcester's annual operations. Multiple educational programs currently serve youth and families of greater Worcester: masterclasses by visiting artists, Tickets to Opportunity, Festival Singers, in-school residencies, and the Young Artist Competitions. Integral to Music Worcester's annual operations, The Worcester Chorus has been part of the organization since the very first concert season in 1858.

During this 2024-25 season, Music Worcester will launch THE COMPLETE BACH, an extraordinary 11-year project to present the complete works of J.S.Bach, culminating in March 2035, the 350th anniversary of Bach's birth.

Tickets for An Evening with Yo-Yo Ma, Friday January 10, 2025 at Mechanics Hall begin at $75, and go on sale to the general public October 14. Pre-sale opportunities are available to sponsors, donors and season subscribers. For tickets and more information, visit musicworcester.org.

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