The great adventurer

‘Isn’t it horrible?’ Yo-Yo Ma says cheerfully from his home in Massachusetts. He’s been in lockdown for two months – two months in which he would have been completing a six-continent tour of Bach’s cello suites. Not one to let the grass grow, he saw the rupture as an opportunity, and launched #SongsOfComfort from his living room with a melody by Dvorák. Typically, the point was not to showcase his own talents, but to invite others to contribute.

And they did: as of late May there are more than 13,000 #SongsOfComfort posts, tens of millions of views. From American healthcare workers to students in China and children in Lebanon, from Paul Simon to Carole King, from musicians Ma has encountered through his work with the Silk Road Ensemble to a generation of young cellists, they’ve all joined in. It’s quite a harvest, and neatly encapsulates what Ma sees as his fundamental mission: ‘This moment has clarified for me that music was invented for a purpose: to serve, to respond to the needs of individuals, communities and society. It is a source of comfort, connection and hope.’

Ever restless, his mind is now turning to the challenge of live performance in a paranoid new world. ‘People are talking about drive-in concerts. I like that idea: it’s safe, it’s fun, there’s a big screen, you can honk and flash your lights, you can make outplanned by English National Opera at Alexandra Palace, and he hoots. Thinking big comes easily to America’s most loved classical musician. Last year he performed the Bach suites outdoors in Chicago to more than 11,000 people. As we speak, he is about to do so again as a fundraising live broadcast, a memorial to all those who have died in the pandemic.