Every record Yo-Yo Ma makes is a bestseller, but some of them sell better than others. One of his greatest hits is "Appalachia Waltz," which Sony Classical released five years ago. Now the cellist has followed it up with a sequel, joining fiddler Mark O'Connor and bassist Edgar Meyer again for "Appalachian Journey."
The first live performance of "Appalachia Waltz" was at a benefit concert for Young Audiences of Massachusetts in 1995 -- just prior to the recording sessions. Now Ma, O'Connor, and Meyer perform "Appalachian Journey" at another benefit for Young Audiences -- the 11th benefit in Cambridge, Mass. He has played for the organization since 1988, and, for the time being, the last time he will perform there.In a recent phone conversation, Ma said, "In terms of regularity, this will be my last Young Audiences benefit for a while, but in terms of my heart, Young Audiences will always be there. Over the last dozen years, Young Audiences has grown so much -- when I started playing these benefits, the budget was about $300,000, but now, this year, it is up to $1 million. Young Audiences programs reach 50,000 kids every year in 600 schools in every part of the state; the organization puts on more than 2,400 music, dance, and theater programs a year. There were only 900 programs when I started."
Ma first heard of Young Audiences when he was a student at Harvard and living in Leverett House. Later, Ma's wife, Jill Horner, joined the board of Young Audiences. "She's been the person who has led the effort in terms of my participation," he explains.
Ma has always tried to do something unusual for the benefit concert. He has appeared in recitals with pianists Judith Gordon and Peter Serkin. He has played with vocalist Bobby McFerrin; violinists Pamela Frank, Joseph Swenson, Lynn Chang and Lucy Stoltzman; the Amaryllis String Quartet and members of the Orion String Quartet; clarinetist Richard Stoltzman; and the New York-Buenos Aires Connection in a collaboration on a tango program.
"It's been a kind of history of my seminal friendships," Ma says of these concerts. "For example, I admired Peter Serkin for years and years but never dared to talk to him, there on his own mountain, so our Young Audiences benefit was our first concert together."
Ma sounds particularly happy to be rounding things off with O'Connor and Meyer again.
"I remember after our last concert of the 'Appalachia Waltz' tour -- it was at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York -- and we all absolutely felt we would like to try to do something else together. So here we are again. The way Mark talks about it, he says, when we first got together, we were three voices, and now there are four voices -- we've added the voice of the group. We feel secure enough about working together to have the nerve to invite some other friends to participate; James Taylor and Alison Krauss appear on the album with us."
There's a special focus to the album, a family focus. "James wrote a piece called 'Benjamin' for his son, which we all loved. So Mark wrote a piece for Emily, my daughter, and Edgar wrote a piece for his son George, and then Alison wrote a slumber song. There's a subtheme of family on the album which is completely appropriate for Young Audiences. Family is what all of us believe in."
Ma's own children are growing up -- his son Nicholas is 16 ("Can you believe it?"), and Emily is 14, and both are away at school. "We've found the right place for each of them for their particular interests and characters," Ma says, "and it all seems to be working. But it's so sad to be getting towards the time when they will be leaving home for good."
Ma's other projects include his collaboration with the composer Bright Sheng to explore the music of the "Silk Road," the historic trade route than ran between the Roman Empire and China. "Tanglewood has been very generous in providing us with space, and at the end of June and the beginning of July, we will have a lot of composers from Mongolia, Central Asia -- all the way west to Lebanon."