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Yo-Yo Ma is one of the most accomplished classical musicians working today. Born in Paris to Chinese parents, he arrived in New York as a child prodigy. He's performed for eight presidents, featured on The Simpsons and Sesame Street and was the first musician to play at the World Trade Centre site one year after the 2001 attacks. He has recorded more than 90 albums and received 18 Grammy Awards.

Here’s what we learned from his Desert Island Discs:

1. An impromptu performance at a vaccination centre reminded him of the power of music

Yo-Yo has long taken music beyond the conventional concert hall, and in March this year, he took his cello with him to a vaccination appointment near his home in Massachusetts. Not everyone recognised who they were listening to that day, the man in a face mask playing the cello, who like everyone else had gone to get his jab. But, as he recalls, “there was an older gentleman who started hearing the music and then he pulled up a chair, as close as he could within social distancing, and he just sat there and listened the whole time I was playing. It was as if this was something he really needed. And for me, that's the essence of doing music at all. It’s that you just go where the need is. It's a form of fuel, of food - maybe not in the material, physical sense - but certainly in the ephemeral and spiritual sense.”

• Watch Yo-Yo Ma: World-famous cellist's impromptu vaccine centre concert on 大象传媒 News

2. His father was his first cello teacher – and he set very high standards

“He was not the cuddly type!” says Yo-Yo, recalling his father, who was a musician and a highly-regarded teacher. “He was very analytical. He had really great methodology… and he was very severe. I had two tiger parents [with] immigrant energy. You know, it's like you've got to succeed. You gotta do it. You gotta do it!”

3. His second musical choice for the island makes him cry - every time

“The first time I heard it, I just wept,” says Yo-Yo. “Do you ever experience something that's so beautiful, so glorious - and it's not because of sadness or tragedy - but something that is just so extraordinary you're brought to tears? Could be a landscape, it could be something else... And that's what it did to me… Here [Bach’s music] is completely enveloping and receptive, and cuddling and cradling all of the human condition. All of who we are, and it's just devastating. I'm brought to tears every time I hear it.”

It's the aria Erbarme Dich from Bach’s St Matthew Passion.

4. The legendary cellist Pablo Casals taught him (and his parents) a very important lesson

As a child prodigy, Yo-Yo had the opportunity to play for Casals. “By that time, he was in his 80s,” explains Yo-Yo. “I asked him to sign my autograph book and he wrote something nice in it. And he said to my parents, 'Don't forget to go and play baseball', which was a really beautiful thing to say. And I think what he meant by that is, make sure you don't spend all your time doing music. Soon after that I read that he thought of himself as a human being first, as a musician second, and as a cellist third. Coming from tiger parents, that was literally music to my ears, because it says, 'Aha, see, it's not all about cello playing!'”

5. His career as a cellist might have ended in his mid-20s

At the age of 25 Yo-Yo had an operation for scoliosis and there was a chance that the outcome would profoundly affect his ability to play the cello.

“I knew this was a major operation,” he explains. “I thought that I had experienced a lot in music by that time. And so, if I never played again, that's okay. And that's where I really value being able to have [had] an education.” As well as studying music at the Juilliard School in New York, Yo-Yo attended Harvard University.

“It actually gave me - maybe totally unfounded - a certain kind of confidence to say: ‘Look, I spent this number of years [playing music], and if I never do it again, I'll live with it. I'll find something else to do.’ But it was a very meaningful moment, because then the extra years that came [after] from being able to play, that was a gift.”

6. He selects jazz giant Oscar Peterson for the island – after a memorable night in Edinburgh

Yo-Yo happened to be appearing at the Edinburgh Festival at the same time as pianist Oscar Peterson, four decades ago. It was the only time he got to hear Peterson playing live. “I sat up in the balcony and for two and a half hours I was treated to the most magnificent performance. That was a performance where he just became bigger and bigger. At an hour and 45 minutes, I thought, ‘Oh, he's getting to the end’. No! He came back with more. At two hours, okay, I thought ‘This is the end, this is great, this is fabulous’. And no, he came back with more. It was so totally amazing.”

The Oscar Peterson track Yo-Yo chooses for the desert island is Tin Tin Deo, a trio recording with a Cuban flavour.

7. Bach’s Suites for solo cello have been a constant companion throughout his career

Yo-Yo has been performing Johann Sebastian Bach’s six Cello Suites for audiences for more than 40 years, his 1985 recording won a Grammy and his recent has been viewed more than nine million times.

He was on a world tour performing the Suites when the pandemic intervened. So does he play them differently now at the age of 65, compared with his youthful 25 year-old self? “Let's put it this way,” he says laughing, “I'm still trying to get it right. It depends on what you think right is.” So what is right when playing what’s regarded as some of the greatest music ever written for the cello? “In a deeper sense,” says Yo-Yo, “with every stage in life, there are certain truths that we encounter. And with each time I've explored [the works], it's been through a different lens. The present lens is about actually saying, simply, this is what I do. This is very meaningful to me. And if I'm a visitor to your community, that's what I can offer. Let's talk.”