Marlboro Music is Where Yo-Yo Ma Decided to Become a Musician
Submitted by: pressreleasepoint
2012-04-03 01:47:17
Famed Cellist Yo-Yo Ma credits the time he spent at Marlboro Music in Vermont for his commitment to music.
New York, NY (OPENPRESS) April 4, 2012 -- Vermont's renowned chamber music retreat, Marlboro Music, is where celebrated cellist, Yo-Yo Ma, decided to become a musician. Ma attended the influential retreat when he was a teenager in the summers of 1972, 1973, 1975 and 1976.
Yo-Yo Ma and Sandor VeghYo-Yo Ma's first contact with Marlboro happened when violinist, Ma Si Hon, and pianist, Tung Kwong Kwong, brought the then six year-old (whose cello was almost twice his size) to where Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider and a group of Marlboro musicians were rehearsing Mozart concertos in New York. During a break in the rehearsal, the young cellist played an unaccompanied Bach Suite that had everyone wide-eyed with amazement.
Eleven years later, 17 year-old Ma became a participant at Marlboro playing with master musicians such as Isidore Cohen of the Beaux Arts Trio and Felix Galimir of the Galimir Quartet, which won the Grand Prix du Disque for the first recordings of the Ravel Quartet and Berg Lyric Suite with the composers attending the recording sessions.
Fellow Marlboro participant Timothy Eddy, cellist of the acclaimed Orion String Quartet, offers this reflection on a conversation with Ma during the 1970s. "We got to talking in an open and frank sort of way and Yo-Yo out of the blue said "I've been thinking a lot about music in my life." I think it's valuable to know that here was this already phenomenal, unbelievable cellist saying 'I'm trying to decide whether to be a cellist, whether to be a cellist full-time, and really put myself into that, and make that my life'. And I was a little taken aback because, of course, I knew I had to make that decision, and I knew that was normal to have to decide this sort of thing. But it just seemed so powerfully right for him to play the cello."
Later, Yo-Yo Ma wrote, "Marlboro was the place where I decided to become a musician, and more importantly, where I met my future wife. The four summers I spent at Marlboro were great formative years. It was there that I was first exposed to the fellowship of colleagues young and old. And it was there that I began questioning things in music. Living through these summers, experiencing the great chamber music literature for the first time, led me to a commitment to music that I could not have received from one school or teacher."
For more information, visit http://www.marlboromusic.org.
Started in 1951 by musical émigrés from Europe, Marlboro Music is a unique summer community for elite musicians. Over seven weeks each summer, fifty emerging musicians collaborate with musical masters, exploring music with unlimited rehearsal time in the kind of depth not generally possible. With an emphasis on study and exchange of ideas, the school is recognized as an important musical incubator. Located in Marlboro, Vermont, the school's unique atmosphere and environment has produced three generations of the world's leading musicians. Visit http://www.marlboromusic.org
Contact:
Frank Salomon
Marlboro Music
121 West 27th Street, Suite 703
New York, NY 10001
212-581-5197
fsalomon@marlboromusic.org
http://www.marlboromusic.org .
