Yo-Yo Ma - Bach Project - DVD

In 2018, Yo-Yo Ma began a two-year journey, setting out to perform Johann Sebastian Bach's six suites for solo cello in one sitting, across 36 locations on 6 continents. For Yo-Yo, Bach's 300-hundred-year-old music is one extraordinary example of how culture connects us and can help us to imagine and build a better future. In an unforgettable experience the 19 times Grammy ® Award winner and internationally acclaimed cellist performed the Cello Suites at the overwhelming Odeon of Herodes Atticus in Athens. Yo-Yo Ma says InchThese suites are so meaningful. They're not only companions and friends, but they've also been reference points in my life.Inch InchSoft sounds around me suggested that others were caught up in similarly strong emotions. How Ma has this effect on people is a mystery I suspect it has to do with the warmth he brings to music that is fundamentally beyond comprehension. He makes the godlike human.Inch (Alex Ross, The New Yorker)

Following on the success of his adaptation of the Goldberg Variations, Spoerli turned to that other Bach masterpiece, the Suites for Solo Cello, offering his abstract vision in three stunningly beautiful dance episodes. The choreography mixes solos, pas de deux, trios and ensemble work. Beginning and ending with a near-identical solo, the cycle is dominated by circularity. The duets are virtuoso gems, athleticism made dance. It's subtle play on balance and the relationship between bodies and light, the symmetry and asymmetry of the ensemble parts, it's purity of movement and it's sheer energy make this a ballet of remarkable density, depth and theatrical beauty. The Bach Suites are played here by Claudius Herrmann, solo cellist with the Zurich Opera Orchestra, in a rendition that does full justice to their choreographic potential.

The West-Eastern Divan Orchestra celebrates it's 20th anniversary by giving a concert at the Berlin Philharmonie with world-renowned artists Anne-Sophie Mutter and Yo-Yo Ma perform Beethoven's Triple Concerto together with Maestro Barenboim and the young musicians. Yo-Yo Ma, who played with the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra at their first concert 20 years ago, and Anne-Sophie Mutter, who made her debut with the orchestra only this year, were named as honorary members of the orchestra on the occasion of this event. InchIt is fascinating to experience how brilliant, concentrated and at the same time relaxed these three world stars make music together and listen to each other. A masterpiece of harmonyInch (RBB24). The second part of the concert features Bruckner's 9th Symphony, transcendental music which the composer himself dedicated to Inchthe dear GodInch. The symphony is unfinished not only because Bruckner died during the process of composition, but especially because it seems to perish in nothingness. The musicians of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra are excellently prepared and play technically and tonal flawlessly. A magic moment.