He began performing before audiences at age five and played for presidents Dwight D. When Dr Ma realised that Yo-Yo was ready for a better teacher, a well-known cello instructor, Mme Michelle Lepinte, was selected. He jokes that his first choice was the double bass due to its large size, but he compromised and took up cello instead. When three-year-old Yo-Yo said he wanted a big instrument, his father went to see Etienne Vatelot, a foremost violin maker in Paris who, after a chat, lent him a 1/16th cello. ДЇrom the age of three, Ma played the violin, piano, and later viola, but settled on cello in 1960 at age four. The family moved to New York City when Ma was seven. Ma's sister, Yeou-Cheng Ma, played the violin and piano before obtaining a medical degree and becoming a pediatrician. They both migrated from the Republic of China to France during the Chinese Civil War. Ma's mother, Marina Lu, was a singer, and his father, Hiao-Tsiun Ma, was a violinist, composer and professor of music at Nanjing National Central University (predecessor of the present-day Nanjing University and Southeast University). Ma was named one of Time 's 100 Most Influential People of 2020. He was awarded The Glenn Gould Prize in 1999, the National Medal of Arts in 2001, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2011, and the Polar Music Prize in 2012. He has been a United Nations Messenger of Peace since 2006. Ma's primary performance instrument is a 1733 Montagnana cello valued at US$2.5 million.

He has collaborated with artists in diverse genres, including singer Bobby McFerrin, guitarist Carlos Santana, SГ©rgio Assad and his brother, Odair, and singer-songwriter-guitarist James Taylor. In addition to recordings of the standard classical repertoire, he has recorded a wide variety of folk music, such as American bluegrass music, traditional Chinese melodies, the tangos of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, and Brazilian music. He has recorded more than 90 albums and received 18 Grammy Awards. He graduated from the Juilliard School and Harvard University, and has performed as a soloist with orchestras around the world. Born in Paris to Chinese parents and educated in New York City, he was a child prodigy, performing from the age of four and a half. Yo-Yo Ma (born October 7, 1955) is an American cellist.

Yo yo ma bach cello suite 1 prelude