The Grand Return of Cello Virtuoso Yo Yo Ma to Florence

 

After an a 20-year absence, the cello virtuoso Yo-Yo Ma, recognized as one of the best of all time, is returning to Florence at the Teatro del Maggio on Saturday, June 14 at 6 pm in a co-production organized by the Amici della Musica and the Maggio Musicale Festival.

Three classics of the cello repertoire will be featured in the program:  three of six Johann Sebastian Bach’s suites for an unaccompanied cello: BWV 1007, BWV 1009 and BWV 1012, the interpretations of which have contributed to Yo Yo Ma’s fame.  The program also includes the contemporary piece “Summer in the High Grassland” by Zhao Jiping from China and a work by Turkish composer Ahmed Adnan Saygun (1907 – 1991), who wrote it on the 150th anniversary of the death of Freidrich Schiller in addition to the “Sonata for Cello” (1955) by George Crumb.

Yo Yo Ma began cello lessons at age four.  Three years later, the family moved to New York, where he enrolled at the Juilliard School before studying humanities at Harvard.

He has been granted many honors, including the National Medal of the Arts, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Kennedy Center Honors.  The musician has been designated a Messenger of Peace by the United Nations, and his albums have received 19 Grammy awards.

Click here for more information and tickets.