By Ron Judd for Cascadia Daily News
April 30, 2026
It is less what he does than who he is.
Not that the former is anything short of remarkable. Those fortunate enough to have been here Sunday, to witness the force of nature that is Yo-Yo Ma, know this at soul level.
To watch the man commune with his cello anytime, anywhere, is a gift from wherever one thinks those are bestowed. His bow strikes, timing and stage presence scream out virtuoso; even to untrained eyes and ears, he is doing things with a stringed instrument few humans can match.
But to watch him play surrounded by a local symphony, composed of people all of us might occasionally run into at Great Harvest Breads? In a room whose hallowed walls have reflected the key notes to the live-music soundtrack of many of our lives?
Magic.
Sunday night, it rained down on Bellingham in a way that sets a new high bar for civic events, in the arts or anything else.
What he did was hold a standing-room crowd at rapt attention as a likely once-in-a-lifetime soloist with the Bellingham Symphony, hitting a nearly unimaginable crescendo in its 50th season celebration.
His effortless performance of English composer Edward Elgar’s “Cello Concerto in E minor,” a post-World War I piece befitting the BSO’s ongoing “Harmony from Discord,” series — a theme that drew Ma like moth to flame — was a case study in grace and fluidity.
Ma appears so far removed from the mechanics of his instrument that his performances seem more pleasure ride than endeavor. The music seems to play more through him than from him. As he moves from front to back in the orchestral mix, his head is back, his upper body in full musical motion; all as he maintains eye contact with fellow musicians.
That eye contact, BSO Music Director and orchestra conductor Yaniv Attar notes, can be intimidating to musicians if one pair of peepers belongs to the likes of Yo-Yo Ma. It need not have been. “Because he exudes so much genuine humanity,” Attar said. “Everyone loves him.”
As Attar, who had seen and briefly encountered Ma previously, told nervous troops during rehearsals: “He doesn’t care how perfectly you play. He wants energy from everybody. He wants to have a good time, and inspire everybody.”
It’s what he does.
That part is established musical legend: A child prodigy born in Paris to a vocalist mother and violinist father, he is a beyond-generational talent who at age 70 appears at the peak of musical prowess, sparked with his first handling of a cello at age 4.
Says Attar, who watched this all play out Sunday, 4 feet to the great cellist’s left: “He doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone. There is no one else like him.”
The who-he-is part is perhaps fully appreciated only in person, before and after performances. Ma uses each show to pass his musical gift forward as broadly as he can muster in what time he has. He’s living now to spread the love of music, letting bow strokes ring out more than words can say about peace, justice and humanity.
That, after all, is what drew him here in the first place, rewriting his schedule many months ago to travel to Bellingham and lend his own voice to the BSO’s ongoing “Harmony from Discord” series.
Attar, a native of Israel who recently saw rehearsals interrupted by take-shelter notifications on his phone from his hometown of Ashdod, acknowledged that having Ma on stage at a time where discord has taken the reins, with harmony struggling to find a voice, was a bit of kismet. It put haunting music with sometimes painful undertones in front of a broader audience who would likely line up to see Yo-Yo Ma play … just about anything.
“It was so special that he wanted to come,” said Gail Ridenour, the symphony’s executive director. The entire point of the “harmony” series, she noted, is “the meaning behind the notes.”
Ma’s propensity to wrap his music in messaging elevates him from musician to icon.
Witness the man standing for several minutes during a thunderous standing ovation after his performance, taking a microphone and choosing these first words for the adoring crowd:
“What an orchestra you have!”
You. We. Us. And sure, the rest of the world, whether that appearance is at Carnegie Hall or on North Commercial Street.
It is validating to hear this in the flesh, from a rare artist whose level of genius is mated with equal parts of something presently in short supply: personal humility, even in the unflinching glare of a spotlight.
Presented Sunday with the traditional post-performance oversized soloist’s floral bouquet, he walked across the stage and handed it to the symphony’s principal cellist, Samantha Sinai, who did what anyone in her shoes would have done — basically melted.
As applause rained down, he made eye contact with every other musician, embraced several members of the string section, then raised both hands over his head to make a heart symbol to the orchestra, members of the Bellingham Symphony Chorus, which had performed earlier; and then the audience.
“This is what we’re here for — harmony from discord,” he told the crowd, noting that the Elgar concerto was written in the wake of a war that claimed 15 million to 20 million lives. The piece, along with a moving earlier performance of Jonathan Leshnoff’s “Of Thee I Sing,” written in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing, is testament to the human ability to “find awe and wonder … in spite of everything,” Ma said.
“And guess what? We’ve found that in this community,” he added. “It is such an amazing place. “I think the land also makes the people,” he said. “You’re more generous to each other because the land gives us so much.”
In tribute to that sense of place, he performed as an encore a personal favorite, Spanish composer Pablo Casals’ “Song of the Birds.” The audience, letting the moment freeze in its brain rather than foolishly attempting, as is the current practice, to try to capture it on a mobile phone, was dead silent.
“He played so soft,” Attar recalled. “It felt to me like the audience didn’t breathe. How do you hear people not breathing? It was just that magical.”
For Bellingham’s orchestra, a new bar has been set. That is not without challenges, Attar says, with a chuckle. “I sort of feel like, what the hell do we do now?”
He’s more excited than worried.
“It elevates the orchestra,” he said. “They know that there are expectations from them now, because they know what it feels like to have that electrifying energy. We’ve had an experience we have never felt before in our life. To make music on such a level, with no worries, and just let your entire body and soul and mind … just let go. It makes us all better.”
Ma, he added, “has this incredible ability to pull you in … with contagious energy and joy.”
Trust the man. If you were there, you know.
It’s who Yo-Yo Ma is, and what he has dropped on our doorstep. What we do with the gift is up to us.
