Arts and Entertainment

Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and pianist Kathryn Stott to collaborate Nov. 3 at Eisenhower

Famed cellist Yo-Yo Ma will perform with British pianist Kathryn Stott, his longtime collaborator, at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 3 in Eisenhower Auditorium. Credit: Todd Rosenberg Photography 2012All Rights Reserved.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Yo-Yo Ma will perform for the third time at Penn State, and this time he’s bringing company. The famed cellist will perform with British pianist Kathryn Stott, his longtime collaborator, at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3, in Eisenhower Auditorium.

Their program will include Igor Stravinsky’s “Suite Italienne,” Sergei Prokofiev’s Sonata in C Major for Cello and Piano, Op. 119, and Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Sonata in G minor for Cello and Piano, Op. 19.

Watch Yo-Yo Ma and Kathryn Stott perform “Ave Maria.” Credit: Yo-Yo Ma Vevo

Ma, a former child prodigy, has recorded more than 100 albums and received 18 Grammy Awards. He also has won a long list of music and service awards, including the 2001 National Medal of Arts and a 2011 Presidential Medal of Freedom. He founded and recorded with the nonprofit collaborative Silk Road Ensemble. His most recent album, a collection of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, finds him performing in a trio with bassist Edgar Meyer and mandolinist Chris Thile.

Stott’s career took off after being chosen as a finalist in the 1978 Leeds International Piano Competition. The solo and chamber musician is known for her adept translations of French composers and contemporary classical compositions. A number of composers have written specifically for her. She also has organized several major classical music festivals and series. She recently was appointed artistic director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, the largest event dedicated to the genre in the Southern Hemisphere.

Ma and Stott met in the late 1970s, when she returned home after vacation. “I discovered a Chinese man in his underpants playing the cello,” Stott told The Guardian in 2008. “(He) had rented the flat via his agent for six weeks, not knowing anyone else would be living there. Luckily, we got along.”

Since the two started performing together in 1984, “they’ve developed a wonderfully warm and mutually responsive musical partnership that has blossomed in performances that are both generous and incisive,” said a critic for NPR.

Their numerous collaborations include a collection of Latin dance music (the Grammy-winning releases “Soul of the Tango” and “Obrigado Brazil”) and the 2015 release “Songs from the Arc of Life.”

Artistic Viewpoints will not be offered before this performance.

For more information, visit the Center for the Performing Arts online or call 814-863-0255.

Tom and Mary Ellen Litzinger are the lead sponsors of the performance.

The Sidney and Helen S. Friedman Endowment provides support.

Find the Center for the Performing Arts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Last Updated October 5, 2017

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