Yo Yo Ma Performed a Healing, Sublime Coda to a Day Opposing Cruelty and Hate in SB
In an emotional evening at the Arlington, the celebrated cellist wove his extraordinary magic for a sold-out audience, many of whose members were fresh from marching in the huge "Hands Off" protest
By Hillary Hauser
A few hours after the “Hands Off” social justice protest ended in Santa Barbara and across the country on Saturday, globally acclaimed cellist Yo Yo Ma took the stage of the Arlington Theatre to perform what he’s known for – extraordinary musicianship for an audience needing comfort.
Ma has engaged his artistry for such healing on many occasions or during times of unease, such as a commemorative cello performance at Ground Zero on the 10th anniversary of the September 11 catastrophe.
With many in the Arlington audience last Saturday night having participated in the De La Guerra Plaza rally and march during the day, tensions, anxiety, and sorrow were high.
As at Ground Zero, Ma’s program at the Arlington was Bach suites for unaccompanied cello. He began with the first suite in G Major, with the title, and all 6 movements, listed on the big stage screen behind him as he moved through the music.
There is something so quieting about Bach and, alone on the stage, Ma’s magnificent cello (its sound so rich, it had to be either his Davidov Stradivarius or 1733 Domenico Montagnana instrument) reached every corner of the vast Arlington.
Before proceeding to others of the suites, Ma talked to his audience – a masterclass of thoughtfulness and grace, as he ruminated about his childhood and his grandparents’ surviving Mao’s regime. He used videos and visuals on the backstage screen – including a quote from Leonard Bernstein:
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
The musical offering was generous – including the entire Cello Suite in D minor. From the stage, he also recounted moving to New York, where he attended Juilliard; in celebration of America, he played the “Summertime” melody from Porgy and Bess and the “Going Home” theme from Dvorak’s “From the New World” Symphony No. 9. Snippets of other of his favorite pieces, including Astro Piazzolla’s “Libertango,” followed.
Ma also brought onstage, and engaged in live, amplified conversation, with his good friend, author and celebrated chef Samin Nosrat, who wrote the NY Times best-selling book, Salt Fat Acid Heat, and these two friends had a casual conversation we could all listen in on.
They talked about Awe, the meaning of it, how to experience it. And Grace, what it means. Their emphasis landed on Nature. This interaction was enhanced by a backdrop of visuals and dialogue displayed on the large onstage screen.
Amid a crowd with many members fresh from protesting what is happening in the U.S. Ma promoted a message of peace through an on-screen slide show of images of the universe as seen through Hubble-like telescopes, as a pre-recorded background of New Age melody played softly from a speaker, accompanied by his subtle and quiet one-line improvisations on the cello.
Weaving their conversation about Grace and Awe, and illustrating the wonders hidden in Nature, he played a recording of humpback whales, by the celebrated biologist Roger Payne.
“These songs can last up to thirty minutes and contain up to nine themes strung together,” Payne noted in his discovery of the whale songs, “so that a long singing session is an exuberant, uninterrupted river of sound.”
Accompanying a recording of one of these whale songs, Ma imitated mammal sounds on his cello, to go along with the sound of the whale, and he also answered whale song with contrapuntal style.
Ma and Nosrat ended the program with a reading and slide show of Good Night Moon, the now-sacred children’s bedtime story. Ma and Nosrat read the verses alternately as illustrations from the book appeared on screen.
Then, the audience was invited to read Good Night Moon aloud together. As we did, Yo Yo Ma improvised a quiet, one-line accompaniment. At the end, the Arlington lights dimmed, and then it really was, “Good Night.”
It was a generous and rare evening, and everyone leaving the theater seemed quiet, calm, less anxious – if not healed then at the least reminded of the values of peace, civility, and basic decency which so often seem in short-supply these days.
“Heal the Ocean” Executive Director Hillary Hauser has been a classical pianist all her life, and has written many concert reviews, as well as interviews with composers and conductors. Some of these works can be found on www.hillaryhauser.com
Images: Human billboard on West Beach at “Hands Off!” rally (Ann Shaw photo); Yo Yo Ma (Santa Barbara Theater).