[On May 5th,
1891, Carnegie Hall—first
known as Music Hall—opened in New York City. In the 125 years since, the
hall has become synonymous with classical music in America. So this week I’ll
AmericanStudy five iconic figures from that tradition, leading to a special
weekend tribute to some 21st century classical musicians and
composers!]
Three very
American moments (and even though he
was born in Paris to Chinese immigrant parents, they moved to New York when
he was 7, he’s lived in the US ever since, and I’m AmericanStudying him!) in
the career of one of our greatest classical
musicians.
1)
A
public and presidential performance: In November 1962, as a 7 year old child
prodigy, Ma performed in a special concert for President John F. Kennedy and
his wife Jackie, along with former President Dwight Eisenhower, opera star
Marian Anderson, poet Robert Frost, and many other celebrities. And oh yeah, he
was conducted in that performance by perhaps the greatest American conductor,
Leonard Bernstein. The moment stands alongside Shirley Temple on those
stairs as one of the most striking and impressive youthful artistic performances
in American culture (and without any awkward minstrelsy to get in the way of
our appreciation for it). But it also reflects the complex connection of
celebrity to artistry that has for so long now dominated—or at least heavily influenced—our
cultural conversations. Was Ma truly an American artistic talent before he
performed on such a public and famous stage?
2)
The
Tonight Show: Or maybe even that performance wasn’t enough, and it was only
two years later, when a now 9 year old Ma performed on Johnny
Carson’s Tonight Show in December
1964 (I can’t find a video of the performance, unfortunately), that he
truly became an American musical star. Ma was introduced on the program by violinist
Isaac Stern, himself an immigrant American (his Jewish family had
immigrated from the Ukraine in 1921, when Stern was only 10 months old) and an
advocate of Ma’s from his time in Paris on. I don’t mean to suggest that you’re
not a real classical musician unless you’ve performed on a late night talk show—that’s
obviously not the medium in which most American classical music gets performed
or heard, nor a necessary barometer for its quality. But as with any artistic
genre, those select few classical artists who can cross over to all branches of
American media have reached a new plateau—and Ma did so before he was even in
double digits.
3)
The Committee of 100: I could of course fill
this spot (and many subsequent blog posts) with other noteworthy performances
and career highlights of Ma’s. But like so many late 20th century
American artists, Ma has also worked to contribute to social and cultural
conversations well beyond his chosen artistic field, and perhaps his most influential
such effort was his prominent role in the 1990 founding of the Committee of 100. As that website notes,
the committee is composed of “Extraordinary Chinese Americans” dedicated to two
distinct but interconnected goals: “Ensuring Full Inclusion in America” and “Advancing
US-China Relations.” As such, I would connect the Committee’s important late 20th
and 21st century work to that of one of my favorite 19th
century Americans, Yung Wing—but since Wing’s diplomatic and educational
careers provided natural fits for his cross-cultural Chinese and Chinese-American
efforts, I find it even more impressive that Yo-Yo Ma has extended so fully
outside of his professional world in order to contribute as well to those
cultural and national goals.
Last icon
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. What do you
think? Other classical music greats you’d highlight?
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