As Yo-Yo Ma stepped out onto the stage with his cello, smiling and waving at his sold-out audience of roughly 900, he seemed to give special attention to the people sitting in the choir loft behind him.
Throughout his concert at Utah Valley University Wednesday night, the 19-time Grammy-winning cellist performed facing away from the loft. But in between numbers, he was always quick to turn around and engage with the cheering fans up there — at times even showing some UVU pride and flashing a Wolverine sign.
Sitting up in that loft were 50 students from Orem Junior High School. The Title 1 school had previously collaborated with the university last fall, bringing in students to learn about the science behind music and the way physics plays a role in the acoustics.
Now, thanks to a partnership with the insurance agency Trucordia, students from Orem Jr. High were once again back at UVU to hear one of the best cellists in the world — a sort of pinch-me moment the kids weren’t taking lightly.
‘A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity’
Ma maintains a robust international touring schedule — until a few years ago, he hadn’t performed in Salt Lake City since the Opening Ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics.
While he played at Red Butte Garden as part of his bluegrass project “The Goat Rodeo Sessions” in 2021, his first solo performance in Utah’s capital since the Olympics was a 2024 performance with the Utah Symphony at Abravanel Hall.
Now, a little over a year later, Ma has brought two performances to Utah County. On Tuesday night, he appeared at Brigham Young University to celebrate both the university’s 150th anniversary and the centennial of the school’s College of Fine Arts and Communication. And on Wednesday, much to the visible joy of Orem Jr. High students, he appeared at UVU.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” 14-year-old Ben Gishi, who plays the cello, told the Deseret News roughly 20 minutes before Ma took the stage. “I honestly didn’t think I would ever see him, so it’s really cool that I get to see him, especially this early in my life.”
Fourteen-year-old Aven Stephenson, who plays alto sax and has her sights set on pursuing music professionally, also said she was surprised to take part in a moment like this so early on.
“I think it’s an excellent opportunity — especially for us young musicians,” she said. “It really makes you want to keep going in your musical career because you know that this isn’t just it. There’s so much more.”
Yo-Yo Ma performs at UVU
There are few things that draw the sense of reverence and awe that come from watching a musician of Ma’s caliber perform up close.
Ma didn’t have any accompaniment for his UVU performance. Sitting onstage, he seemed to dance and converse with his cello as he made it sing. Sometimes, it was hard to believe the powerful sound ringing out in the Noorda Center’s concert hall was coming from just one instrument.
The cellist plays with the kind of carefree ease that can only come through hard work, but also with a joy that makes it clear there’s nothing else he’d rather be doing. It’s a level of artistry that draws to mind everything from Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel ceiling to Alyssa Liu’s heartwarming, gold medal-winning free skate at the 2026 Winter Olympics.
After performing his opening number, which started with Mark O’Conner’s “Appalachia Waltz” and eventually segued into “Over the Rainbow,” Ma was met with cheers as he addressed his audience for the first time and shouted out, “Go Wolverines!”
“I’m so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me,” he said. “It’s such a joy to be in your state, at your university.”
Ma’s program Wednesday night was a true representation of his genre-crossing career, and his love of championing modern-day composers.
He introduced and performed three new pieces with his audience: one from his friend and South African cellist Abel Selacoe; a five-movement number inspired by the movement of water from French composer Camille Pepin; and a three-movement work from Caroline Shaw that draws inspiration from Maya Angelou’s poetry — and asks for audience participation.
“This is community,” Ma said as he brought Shaw’s piece to a close.
Ma concluded the night with a piece he described as “an experiment from over 300 years ago”: J.S. Bach’s Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major.
After performing the wide-ranging program spanning from the early 18th century to 2026, Ma almost seemed like a rock star as he walked on and off the stage to loud cheers and a long standing ovation — including from the starstruck teenagers in the choir loft behind him.
The memorable evening was a reminder of the importance of accessibility in the arts, according to Courtney Davis, dean of UVU’s School of the Arts.
“I think (it) really represents the best of what a university performing arts center can truly be,” she said.