SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
From the civil rights era on, folk and rock music have been associated with social movements. Classical music, not so much. Cello superstar Yo-Yo Ma wants to change that at the Tanglewood Music Festival. And tonight, he wraps up a week of performances and public conversations to reflect on the country's past and future. Karen Brown of New England Public Media checked out the event in the Berkshires in Western Massachusetts.
KAREN BROWN, BYLINE: When I first met Yo-Yo Ma, he was warm and self-deprecating. Here's how he introduced himself when we talked on the sprawling grounds of Tanglewood, the classical music venue in the Berkshires.
YO-YO MA: My name is Yo-Yo Ma. I'm an aging cellist.
BROWN: (Laughter).
Never mind he's probably the world's best-known cellist, famous since he was 7 when he played for President John F. Kennedy. More recently, he founded the Silk Road Ensemble, a global musical collaboration. So when Yo-Yo Ma, now 70, takes on a project, people listen. For his latest, based at Tanglewood, Ma curated a week of concerts, public conversations and community events to reflect on the American experiment. It's called We The People.
MA: Obviously, we're going through the 250th celebration. But also at a time when, I think, in many ways, we the people, we the species are at an inflection point. Where are we going?
BROWN: Hopefully, he says, somewhere that celebrates diverse voices, including immigrants, Indigenous people and youth.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BROWN: Throughout the week, Ma weaved his own performances with the Boston Symphony Orchestra, together with high school marching bands and Native American storytellers. He booked a Latino block party in the theater pavilion...
(CHEERING)
BROWN: ...And a square dance on the lawn.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
UNIDENTIFIED ANNOUNCER: Make an arch. Couple No. 1, you make an arch. Couple No. 2...
BROWN: One evening, he introduced a student performance of Beethoven's "Pastoral Symphony" played without a conductor.
MA: Their experiment is to agree on how to play and feel together without a single leader - an example of musical democracy.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
BROWN: When putting together the program, Ma says he looked for collaborators with a hopeful message, using the lens of a grandfather.
MA: You can't be cynical with your grandchildren. You have to have hope. You know, my youngest granddaughter is 2 years old. Who can actually help us think about a world she would want to live in?
BROWN: His picks included folk singer James Taylor, political historian Heather Cox Richardson and Alabama civil rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson, who founded several memorials to the legacy of slavery.
BRYAN STEVENSON: I think music has always been an important part of the struggle to create a more just America. Without the spirituals, many of the 10 million Black people who were enslaved in this country would not have been able to cope with the constant terror, violence and assault.
BROWN: But over the past century of injustices, Stevenson says many musicians, especially in classical music, have looked the other way.
STEVENSON: Yo-Yo Ma stands, I think, on the opposite side of that tradition. He is a musician that refuses to be silent in the face of the kind of horrors we've seen throughout history. And I think that's an important model for other musicians and for other artists and people who love music and art.
BROWN: Composer Allison Loggins-Hull, whose work was performed at the event, says she's grateful classical music institutions like Tanglewood are starting to take that kind of risk.
ALLISON LOGGINS-HULL: I can say that there has been a significant change - much more willingness to have these type of discussions that maybe aren't directly about music or the tradition but more about the responsibility of just being a citizen.
(SOUNDBITE OF CELLO PLAYING)
BROWN: Ma insists that We The People is not political, and neither is he. Diversity, he says, speaks for itself.
MA: So it's not like - I don't have a political agenda. I'm actually for the good of people. And instead of protesting, I just like to join things together. And, you know, why shouldn't we be one community?
(SOUNDBITE OF CELLO PLAYING)
BROWN: The next day, he put on sneakers and a polo shirt to play cello on the street as part of a local busking festival.
(SOUNDBITE OF CELLO PLAYING)
BROWN: For NPR News, I'm Karen Brown in Western Massachusetts.
(SOUNDBITE OF CELLO PLAYING) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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