Yo-Yo Ma released Six Evolutions – Bach: Cello Suites (Sony Classical), his third and final recording of these works, on August 17, 2018. Ma is more convinced than ever of the suites’ ability to create shared meaning that extends far beyond the here and now. The suites’ collective vision – at once divergent and coherent, empathic and objective – reminds us of all that connects us despite an increasingly discordant public conversation.
“Now that I’m in my sixties,” Ma says, “I realize that my sense of time has changed, both in life and in music, at once expanded and compressed. Music, like all of culture, helps us to understand our environment, each other, and ourselves. Culture helps us to imagine a better future. Culture helps turn ‘them’ into ‘us.’ And these things have never been more important.”
Six Evolutions will not only offer an essential encapsulation of what this music means now to one of our most celebrated artists. It is also an invitation to think differently about the role of culture in society.
